Does a compiler always produce an assembly code?

Question

From Thinking in C++ - Vol 1:

In the second pass, the code generator walks through the parse tree and generates either assembly lan

Answer 1

It's a matter of compiler implementation. Assembly code is an intermediate step between higher-level language (the one being compiled) and the resulting binary output. In general it's easier first to convert to assembly and after that to binary code instead of directly creating the binary code.