A compiler is a program that translates a program written in one language, called the source language, into an equivalent program in another language, called the target language. There are thousands of source languages and target languages may be other programming languages or machine languages. The compiler performs analysis by breaking down the source program into pieces and creating an intermediate representation, then performs synthesis by constructing the target program from the intermediate representation using techniques like creating a syntax tree that represents the operations and arguments in the source program.