Editing Polyglot (computing) (section)

{{Short description|Computer program or file valid in multiple programming languages or file formats}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2023}}

In [[computing]], a '''polyglot''' is a [[computer program]] or [[script (computer programming)|script]] (or other file) written in a valid form of multiple [[programming language]]s or [[File format|file formats]].<ref name="ACMNOV13">{{cite book |author1=Jonas Magazinius |author2=Billy K. Rios |author3=Andrei Sabelfeld |title=Proceedings of the 2013 ACM SIGSAC conference on Computer & communications security - CCS '13 |chapter=Polyglots |date=2013-11-04 |pages=753–764 |doi=10.1145/2508859.2516685 |isbn=9781450324779 |s2cid=16516484 |chapter-url=https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2508859.2516685 |access-date=5 September 2022 |archive-date=5 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220905003825/https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2508859.2516685 |url-status=live }}</ref> The name was coined by analogy to [[multilingualism]]. A '''polyglot file''' is composed by combining syntax from two or more different formats.<ref name="BeyondTheHype">{{cite journal |arxiv=2012.09214|last1=Bridges |first1=Robert A. |last2=Oesch |first2=Sean |last3=Verma |first3=Miki E. |last4=Iannacone |first4=Michael D. |last5=Huffer |first5=Kelly M. T. |last6=Jewell |first6=Brian |last7=Nichols |first7=Jeff A. |last8=Weber |first8=Brian |last9=Beaver |first9=Justin M. |last10=Smith |first10=Jared M. |last11=Scofield |first11=Daniel |last12=Miles |first12=Craig |last13=Plummer |first13=Thomas |last14=Daniell |first14=Mark |last15=Tall |first15=Anne M. |title=Beyond the Hype: An Evaluation of Commercially Available Machine-Learning-Based Malware Detectors |journal=Digital Threats: Research and Practice |year=2023 |volume=4 |issue=2 |pages=1–22 |doi=10.1145/3567432 |s2cid=247218744 }}</ref> 

When the file formats are to be [[Compiler|compiled]] or [[Interpreter (computing)|interpreted]] as [[source code]], the file can be said to be a '''polyglot program''', though file formats and source code syntax are both fundamentally streams of bytes, and exploiting this commonality is key to the development of polyglots.<ref name="TDPF">{{cite arXiv |eprint=2203.07561|last1=Koch |first1=Luke |last2=Oesch |first2=Sean |last3=Adkisson |first3=Mary |last4=Erwin |first4=Sam |last5=Weber |first5=Brian |last6=Chaulagain |first6=Amul |title=Toward the Detection of Polyglot Files |year=2022 |class=cs.CR }}</ref> Polyglot files have practical applications in [[Computer_compatibility#Software|compatibility]],<ref>{{cite web |title=Benefits of polyglot XHTML5 |url=http://www.xmlplease.com/xhtml/xhtml5polyglot/ |access-date=4 September 2022 |archive-date=12 October 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111012190748/http://xmlplease.com/xhtml/xhtml5polyglot/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> but can also present a [[Computer security|security]] risk when used to bypass [[Data validation|validation]] or to exploit a [[Vulnerability (computing)|vulnerability]].