Porting

In software engineering, 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.g. different CPU, operating system, or third party library). The term is also used when software/hardware is changed to make them usable in different environments.

Software is portable when the cost of porting it to a new platform is significantly less than the cost of writing it from scratch. The lower the cost of porting software, relative to its implementation cost, the more portable it is said to be.

Etymology

The term "port" is derived from the Italian portare, meaning "to carry". When code is not compatible with a particular operating system or architecture, the code must be "carried" to the new system.

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.e. language conversion or translation).