In computer programming an interpreted language is a programming language whose implementation often takes the form of an interpreter. Theoretically, any language may be compiled or interpreted, so this designation is applied purely because of common implementation practice and not some underlying property of a language.
Many languages have been implemented using both compilers and interpreters, including Lisp, Pascal, C, BASIC, and Python. While Java is translated to a form that is intended to be interpreted, just-in-time compilation is often used to generate machine code. The Microsoft .Net languages compile to CIL from which is often then compiled into native machine code; however there is a virtual machine capable of interpreting CIL.
In the early days of computing, language design was heavily influenced by the decision to use compilation or interpretation as a mode of execution. For example, some compiled languages require that programs must explicitly state the data-type of a variable at the time it is declared or first used while some interpreted languages take advantage of the dynamic aspects of interpretation to make such declarations unnecessary. For example, Smalltalk—which was designed to be interpreted at run-time—allows generic Objects to dynamically interact with each other.
Initially, interpreted languages were compiled line-by-line; that is, each line was compiled as it was about to be executed, and if a loop or subroutine caused certain lines to be executed multiple times, they would be recompiled every time. This has become much less common. Most so-called interpreted languages use an intermediate representation, which combines both compilation and interpretation. In this case, a compiler may output some form of bytecode or threaded code, which is then executed by a bytecode interpreter. Examples include Python, and Java. Similarly, Ruby uses an abstract syntax tree as intermediate representation. The intermediate representation can be compiled once and for all (as in Java), each time before execution (as in Perl or Ruby), or each time a change in the source is detected before execution (as in Python).