# 18.8 `py_compile` -- Compile Python source files

The `py_compile` module provides a function to generate a byte-code file from a source file, and another function used when the module source file is invoked as a script.

Though not often needed, this function can be useful when installing modules for shared use, especially if some of the users may not have permission to write the byte-code cache files in the directory containing the source code.

exception `PyCompileError`
  Exception raised when an error occurs while attempting to compile the file.

`compile`( | file[, cfile[, dfile[, doraise]]])

  Compile a source file to byte-code and write out the byte-code cache file. The source code is loaded from the file name file. The byte-code is written to cfile, which defaults to file `+` `'c'` (`'o'` if optimization is enabled in the current interpreter). If dfile is specified, it is used as the name of the source file in error messages instead of file. If doraise = True, a PyCompileError is raised when an error is encountered while compiling file. If doraise = False (the default), an error string is written to sys.stderr, but no exception is raised.

`main`( | [args])

  Compile several source files. The files named in args (or on the command line, if args is not specified) are compiled and the resulting bytecode is cached in the normal manner. This function does not search a directory structure to locate source files; it only compiles files named explicitly.

When this module is run as a script, the `main()` is used to compile all the files named on the command line.

See Also:

Module `compileall`:
  Utilities to compile all Python source files in a directory tree.