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I think typically a compiler will translate whatever language (C/C++) into assembly and call an assembler, which will then work with a linker to create the final object file.

In C++, the compiler will translate a program into a obj file.
It will tokenize our program into a series of tokens, and analyze the grammer and syntax, if no error occur, it will translate into a obj file

network-theory.co.uk/docs/gccintro/gccintro_83.html

In terms of Java

A compiler reads class and interface definitions, written in the Java programming language, and compiles them into bytecode class files. It can also process annotations in Java source files and classes.

For more details
docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/technotes/tools/windows/javac.html