What does the phrase “created at runtime mean?”

My supervisor asked me the other day if a log file in a Python script is created at runtime or not. Is that another way of asking: is a new log file created every time the script is run? Because to me everything happens “at runtime” and it can be no other way. How else could it be?

Answer

The phrase is usually used when you cannot figure out the content of some variable/data by just analyzing the code and other associated files (such as configs). The easiest example I can think of is

x = 'hi'
print(x)

versus

x = input()
print(x)

In the second example “x is created at runtime”. (Or more precisely, the data which the name x points to is dynamic and can be different in each execution.)