In programming,what is the difference between "compiling" and "linking"?

Answer 1

Compiling consists of checking source code for errors and translating the code into another target language (often to machine language).

Linking refers to taking the output from a compiler and merging it into a single file or object by various means such as adding it or referring to it.

Linking can be static, dynamic, and run-time depending on when it happens.

For a good read see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linker
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compilers

By far these two articles do more justice than I can do here.

Answer 2

I would explain it to you, but it would be repeating what Wikipedia has already done. Read about linkers here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linker
And compilation here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compiler

Basically, the compiler makes one or more machine-usable binary files from code that it is given as input. There may be more than one of those binary files and they may need to be joined together to do something useful. That's what the linker does. Linkers join binary object files (which have been generated by a compiler) together to do something useful (like form an operable program). I think that about covers it. Have a good night!

Answer 3

Not as fancy as the other answers, but compiling creates a object for use by an executable, link makes the execuatable stand-alone.