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?
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:
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.
.pycfile instead of re-compiling. A new.pycfile gets generated if the.pyfile changes.