By compiling during execution, the system can tailor the generated code to reflect the program's run-time environment, and potentially produce more efficient code by exploiting information that is not available to a traditional static compiler.
Most dynamic recompilers are used to convert machine code between architectures at runtime.
This is a task often needed in the emulation of legacy gaming platforms.
In other cases, a system may employ dynamic recompilation as part of an adaptive optimization strategy to execute a portable program representation such as Java or .NET Common Language Runtime bytecodes.
Full-speed debuggers also utilize dynamic recompilation to reduce the space overhead incurred in most deoptimization techniques, and other features such as dynamic thread migration.