In order to provide advanced functionality (like hyperlinks, autocomplete, design and class hierarchy, error signaling, etc.) DVT analyzes the source code files in your project. This analysis process is called build and it is performed by the DVT internal builder (also referred to as internal builder or DVT builder or DVT parser). For convenience, build is synonym with code compilation or code analysis.

The internal builder performs an initial full build of your project (a full build can also be triggered on demand). As you change sources, DVT performs an incremental build (incremental compilation), that is it analyzes only the changes. Unless the build automatically preference is turned off, an incremental build is performed as soon as you save or as soon as DVT detects some idle time after you changed the code.

DVT includes standard compliant code parsers. During the build process it creates an internal representation of the code. This representation is called the internal DVT dictionary, index, database or model. This model is partially serialized on the disk, so that subsequent tool invocations don't require a full build. See Build Persistence for more details.

In order to build, the internal builder uses the arguments that you specify in the current build file. A build file is one of the <name>.build files located in the .dvt folder of your project.

Blue bullet decorations indicate if a file is compiled, for example in the Navigator View.

	This is a compiled file.
	This file is not compiled.