See also: software portability

In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed (e. Portability is one of the key concepts of high-level programming. Computer science (or computing science) is the study and the Science of the theoretical foundations of Information and Computation and their Computer programs (also software programs, or just programs) are instructions for a Computer. g. different CPU, operating system, or third party library). An operating system (commonly abbreviated OS and O/S) is the software component of a Computer system that is responsible for the management and coordination In Computer science, a library is a collection of Subroutines used to develop Software. The term is also used in a general way to refer to the changing of software/hardware to make them usable in different environments.

Software is portable when the cost of porting it to a new platform is less than the cost of writing it from scratch. Portability is one of the key concepts of high-level programming. The lower the cost of porting software, relative to its implementation cost, the more portable it is said to be.

Etymology

The term is not generally applied to the process of adapting software to run with less memory on the same CPU and operating system, nor is it applied to the rewriting of source code in a different language (i. A programming language is an Artificial language that can be used to write programs which control the behavior of a machine particularly a Computer. e. language conversion or translation).

Software developers often claim that the software they write is portable, meaning that little effort is needed to adapt it to a new environment. Portability is one of the key concepts of high-level programming. The amount of effort actually needed depends on several factors, including the extent to which the original environment (the source platform) differs from the new environment (the target platform), the experience of the original authors in knowing which programming language constructs and third party library calls are unlikely to be portable, and the amount of effort invested by the original authors in only using portable constructs (platform specific constructs often provide a cheaper solution). A programming language is an Artificial language that can be used to write programs which control the behavior of a machine particularly a Computer.

Alternate version: The term 'Port' actually came from Portage, as in 'to carry a canoe' thereby avoiding an obstacle. Portage refers to the practice of carrying a Canoe or other Boat over land to avoid an obstacle on the water route (such as Rapids or a Waterfall Usually the code, like the canoe, would carry the users. When the code is unable to do so, the programmer must carry the code over the obstacle, so that the code can once again carry the users.

History

The number of significantly different CPUs and operating systems used on the desktop today is much smaller than in the past. The dominance of the x86 architecture means that most desktop software is never ported to a different CPU. See also X86 assembly language The generic term x86 refers to the most commercially successful Instruction set architecture in the history of Personal An instruction set is a list of all the instructions and all their variations that a processor can execute In that same market, the choice of operating systems has effectively been reduced to three: Microsoft Windows (with about 90% market share), Mac OS/Mac OS X, and Unix/Linux. Microsoft Windows is a series of Software Operating systems and Graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Mac OS is the trademarked name for a series of Graphical user interface -based Operating systems developed by Apple Inc Mac OS X (mæk oʊ ɛs tɛn is a line of computer Operating systems developed marketed and sold by Apple Inc, the latest of which is pre-loaded on all currently Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX, sometimes also written as Unix with Small caps) is a computer Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks However, in the embedded systems market, portability remains a significant issue. An embedded system is a special-purpose Computer system designed to perform one or a few dedicated functions often with Real-time computing constraints Portability is one of the key concepts of high-level programming.

International standards, such as those promulgated by the ISO, greatly facilitate porting by specifying details of the computing environment in a way that helps reduce differences between different standards-conforming platforms. In Computing, a platform describes some sort of Hardware architecture or Software framework (including Application frameworks, that allows Writing software that stays within the bounds specified by these standards represents a practical although nontrivial effort. Porting such a program between two standards-compliant platforms (such as POSIX.1) can be just a matter of loading the source code and recompiling it on the new platform. POSIX (ˈpɒzɪks or "Portable Operating System Interface" is the collective name of a family of related standards specified by the IEEE to define A compiler is a Computer program (or set of programs that translates text written in a computer language (the source language) into another However, practitioners often find that various minor corrections are required, due to subtle platform differences. Most standards suffer from "gray areas" where differences in interpretation lead to small variations from platform to platform.

There also exist an ever-increasing number of tools to facilitate porting, such as the GNU Compiler Collection, which provides consistent programming languages on different platforms, and Autotools, which automates the detection of minor variations in the environment and adapts the software accordingly before compilation. The GNU Compiler Collection (usually shortened to GCC) is a set of Compilers produced for various Programming languages by the GNU Project The GNU build system, also known as the Autotools, is a suite of Programming tools produced by the GNU project.

The compilers for some high-level programming languages (e. g. Eiffel, Esterel) gain portability by outputting source code in a high level intermediate language (such as C) for which compilers for many platforms are generally available. Eiffel is an ISO -standardized Object-oriented Programming language designed to enable programmers to efficiently develop extensible reusable reliable Esterel is a synchronous Programming language for the development of complex Reactive systems The Imperative programming style of In Computer science, an intermediate language is the language of an Abstract machine designed to aid in the analysis of Computer programs The term comes tags please moot on the talk page first! --> In Computing, C is a general-purpose cross-platform block structured

Two activities related to (but distinct from) porting are emulating and cross-compiling. An emulator duplicates (provides an emulation of the functions of one System using a different system so that the second system behaves like (and appears to A cross compiler is a Compiler capable of creating Executable code for a platform other than the one on which the compiler is run

Porting in gaming

Porting is also the term used when a computer game designed to run on one platform, be it a personal computer or a video game console, is converted to run on a different platform. A personal computer Game (also known as a computer game or simply PC game) is a Video game played on a Personal computer, rather A personal computer ( PC) is any Computer whose original sales price size and capabilities make it useful for individuals and which is intended to be operated Earlier video game "ports" were often not true ports, but rather reworked versions of the games. A video game is a Game that involves interaction with a User interface to generate visual feedback on a video device. However, more and more video games are now being developed using software that can output code for PCs as well as for one or more consoles. Many early ports suffered significant gameplay quality issues because the hardware of PCs and consoles differed so dramatically.

See also

• Console emulator
• List of System Quality Attributes
• Source port
• Write once, compile anywhere
• Poshlib
• Cross-platform