Do programming language compilers first translate to assembly or directly to machine code?

Question

I\'m primarily interested in popular and widely used compilers, such as gcc. But if things are done differently with different compilers, I\'d like to know that, too.

Answer 1

Java compilers compile to java byte code (binary format) and then run this using a virtual machine (jvm).

Whilst this may seem slow it - it can be faster because the JVM can take advantage of later CPU instructions and new optimizations. A C++ compiler won't do this - you have to target the instruction set at compile time.