Does the interpreter compile python scripts?
Question: I wrote a script, say, `samplescript.py`. All I can recall doing with, other
than editing it, is running it through the command-line python interpreter.

Later, I found a `samplescript.pyc` file. Does running a script through the
interpreter always invoke the compilation of the script?


Answer: When you execute your code, python creates a compiled pyc file. This file is
the one executed in posterior runs if you do not modify your code

From [here](http://docs.python.org/release/1.5.1p1/tut/node43.html):

> As an important speed-up of the start-up time for short programs that use a
> lot of standard modules, if a file called "spam.pyc" exists in the directory
> where "spam.py" is found, this is assumed to contain an already-``byte-
> compiled'' version of the module spam. The modification time of the version
> of "spam.py" used to create "spam.pyc" is recorded in "spam.pyc", and the
> file is ignored if these don't match.
>
> Normally, you don't need to do anything to create the "spam.pyc" file.
> Whenever "spam.py" is successfully compiled, an attempt is made to write the
> compiled version to "spam.pyc". It is not an error if this attempt fails; if
> for any reason the file is not written completely, the resulting "spam.pyc"
> file will be recognized as invalid and thus ignored later. The contents of
> the "spam.pyc" file is platform independent, so a Python module directory
> can be shared by machines of different architectures.

