Does a python code with the function exec in it get compiled to an executable?

Question

I am new to python and I have never compiled python code to an executable file before. The languages I am well familiar with are C, C++, and Java and I have never come across a language that lets you modify the code from within itself, like Python which uses has the method exec.

For the following code,

a = 500
code  = raw_input() 
exec (code)

When I give the input as, print (a) the program displays the value in a. So this means the variable a comes within the scope of the code.

I don't understand what would happen if we try to convert the python code to an executable using a program like py2exe. Will the method exec still work? If it does work, does py2exe bring the entire Python compiler and interpreter with it when the program gets compiled?

Answer 1

py2exe never compiles Python code into native executables; it bundles up a Python interpreter into an executable, always. This is likewise true of freeze, cx_Freeze and every other tool offering similar functionality while supporting the full Python language rather than a limited subset thereof.

Thus, exec, eval and similar constructs are available without needing additional facilities.