Editing Compatibility layer (section)

{{Short description|Interface that allows binaries for a legacy or foreign system to run on a host system}}
{{Excessive examples|date=June 2023}}
{{Technical|date=October 2022}}
In [[software engineering]], a '''compatibility layer''' is an interface that allows [[Executable|binaries]] for a legacy or foreign system to run on a host system. This translates [[system call]]s for the foreign system into native system calls for the host system. With some [[library (computing)|libraries]] for the foreign system, this will often be sufficient to run foreign binaries on the host system. A hardware compatibility layer consists of tools that allow [[hardware emulation]].