Compilation Vs Transpilation

Table of contents

As we all know about the word compilation and compiler but I came across to know the word transpilation for the first time in yesterday’s Bootcamp session. So what is this word mean? Let’s discover together. First, we discuss what compiler does?

Compiler

A compiler is a special program that processes statements written in a particular programming language and converts them into a machine-readable language(binary). As we can say the compiler takes the source code which is written in a higher-level language (c,c++), and converts it into machine-level language or low-level language. compiler.png Top-most compilers used in different languages.

  • C: Turbo C, GCC, Clang, Portable C Compiler
  • C++ : GCC,Clang,Dev c++,intel c++
  • Java: IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse IDE, NetBeans, BlueJ, JDeveloper
  • JavaScript– WebStorm, Atom IDE, Visual Studio Code, Komodo Edit

Transpiler

Transpilers are additionally known for source-to-source compilers. Transpilers are which take one source code document and convert it to another source code document in some other language or different version of the same language. The output is generally understandable by a human. This result needs to go through a compiler or interpreter to be able to run on the machine.

Babel is one example of Transpilers which converts ES6+ code into ES5. Transpiling is a specific term for taking source code written in one language and transforming it into another language that has a similar level of abstraction. Here is an image you can see what compiler and transpiler do. Compiler converts the language into byte code whereas transpiler converts into another language with the same level of abstraction.

compiler_vs_transpiler.png

Here is the table of some of the transpiler.

Capture.PNG I hope you understand the difference between compiler and transpiler. Thank you for reading. Let me know in the comment section if you like it or not.