[sasidhar]

How does a high level programming language (such as Java, C, C++) work? [How are instructions parsed? What does a compiler do? How does it work? How does the information get translated into bits and bytes that run on a chip in the end? How do these translated instructions get executed on the chip and how is the information compiled back and presented as console output to the user? etc.]

[King Coder]

I can tell you a little, but the other information is probably very irellevant.

When you click compile, it is not the compiler that runs first. It is the preprocessor. The preprocessor takes everything found at lines beginning with # and inserts the real code for it. For include statements, they are imported directly into the program. Then the compiler runs.

[twoeyes]

Well I dont really think of C++ as being high level its more low level to me (PHP being high level IMO) since its pretty much as low as anybody goes these days (lower level assembly, etc is just not practical with these new tools)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compiler probably explains best.