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The period of time during which a program'ssource code is being translated into machine code, asopposed to run time when the program is being executed. Aswell as the work done by the compiler, this may includemacro preprocessing as done by cpp for example. The finalstage of program construction, performed by the linker,would generally also be classed as compile time but might bedistinguished as link time.For example, static data in a C program is allocated atcompile time whereas non-static data is allocated at runtime, typically on the stack.