Build or compile

Question

I have a theoretical question about the difference between compile and build. I\'m programming in a c++ project that takes a lot of time to build, so I have told to do build

Answer 1

Compiling is just one of the steps in building. Any time you need to recompile, you will need to rebuild.

Compiling just takes the source files and their included header files and generates an object file for each source file. Building also links these files together to create your executable. So if you change a source file, you need to build if you want a new executable to test. Compiling will just get you part way there.