FYI, an assembler is a program that compiles assembly language source code
to machine language.

Okay, to be entirely accurate machine code or native instructions :-) I come
from the old Z80/6502 programming days when we programmed in assembler.

I don't know that MS has documented exactly what happens to our VBA source
code. Clearly it's converted to something when we save a file because the
code is not literally visible in the file when viewed with a text editor.
Obviously it's not compiled to machine language since the code runs on PCs
and Macs.

True - you can see the comments (in Unicode) but not a lot else. Basic has
been tokenised since the early days so Exit Sub is stored as a number.

issuing the command, but it doesn't compile code in traditional sense of
producing code a processor can directly execute.

Sounds it's something akin to p-code or the stuff used in the .NET
languages.

Would be nice to know, just for interest :-)

Cheers, Rob.