How do compilers and interpreters respond to comments in your code?

Comments in programming are used to provide explanations or notes within the code, helping developers understand the purpose or functionality of certain sections without affecting the program's execution. Compilers and interpreters are designed to process the actual code intended for execution, while comments are specifically marked to be non-executable.

When a compiler or interpreter encounters a comment, it recognizes it as a part of the code meant solely for human readability and not for machine processing. This means that comments are completely ignored in the compilation or interpretation process. They do not get converted into machine code, executed, or treated as errors; instead, they serve purely as annotations that assist developers during coding or for others reading the code later on. This non-influence on the execution flow is why the response to comments is to ignore them entirely.