What does a just-in-time (JIT) compiler do?

Question

What does a JIT compiler specifically do as opposed to a non-JIT compiler? Can someone give a succinct and easy to understand description?

Answer 1

After the byte code (which is architecture neutral) has been generated by the Java compiler, the execution will be handled by the JVM (in Java). The byte code will be loaded in to JVM by the loader and then each byte instruction is interpreted.

When we need to call a method multiple times, we need to interpret the same code many times and this may take more time than is needed. So we have the JIT (just-in-time) compilers. When the byte has been is loaded in to JVM (its run time), the whole code will be compiled rather than interpreted, thus saving time.

JIT compilers works only during run time, so we do not have any binary output.