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Python compile() Function - GeeksforGeeks

Last Updated : 11 Jul, 2025

Python is a high-level, general-purpose, and very popular programming language. In this article, we will learn about the Python compile() function.

Python compile() function takes source code as input and returns a code object that is ready to be executed and which can later be executed by the exec() function.

Syntax compile(source, filename, mode, flags=0, dont_inherit=False, optimize=-1)

Parameters:

• Source - It can be a normal string, a byte string, or an AST object
• Filename -This is the file from which the code was read. If it wasn't read from a file, you can give a name yourself.
• Mode - Mode can be exec, eval or single.
• a. eval - If the source is a single expression.
• b. exec - It can take a block of a code that has Python statements, class and functions and so on.
• c. single - It is used if consists of a single interactive statement
• Flags (optional) and dont_inherit (optional) - Default value=0. It takes care that which future statements affect the compilation of the source.
• Optimize (optional) - It tells optimization level of compiler. Default value -1.

Example 1: Here filename is mulstring and exec mode allows the use of exec() method and the compile method converts the string to a Python code object.

srcCode = 'x = 10\ny = 20\nmul = x * y\nprint("mul =", mul)'
execCode = compile(srcCode, 'mulstring', 'exec')
exec(execCode)

Output:

mul = 200

Example 2: In the code we are using compile() to compile a single expression 'x' and then execute it using exec().

x = 50
a = compile('x', 'test', 'single')
print(type(a))
exec(a)

Output:

<class 'code'>
50

In this example, we will take main.py file with some string display methods, and then we read the file content and compile it to code the object and execute it.

String = "Welcome to Geeksforgeeks"
print(String)

Here we will read the file content as a string and then compile it to a code object.

f = open('main.py', 'r')
temp = f.read()
f.close()

code = compile(temp, 'main.py', 'exec')
exec(code)

Output:

Welcome to Geeksforgeeks

Here eval is used when the source is a single expression. 

x = 50

# Note eval is used for statement
a = compile('x == 50', '', 'eval')
print(eval(a))

Output:

True

1. If the Python code is in string form or is an AST object, and you want to change it to a code object, then you can use compile() method.
2. The code object returned by the compile() method can later be called using methods like: exec() and eval() which will execute dynamically generated Python code.

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