Editing Porting (section)

{{Short description|Process of adapting software to run in other computing environments}}
In [[software engineering]], '''porting''' is the process of adapting [[software]] for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a [[Computing platform|computing environment]] that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally designed for (e.g., different [[Central processing unit|CPU]], operating system, or third party [[Library (computer science)|library]]). The term is also used when software/hardware is changed to make them usable in different environments.<ref>{{cite journal |date=March 1975
|title=A machine and configuration independent Fortran: Portable Fortran
|first1=D.E. |last1=Whitten |first2=P.A.D. |last2=Demaine |journal=IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering |volume=SE-1 |issue=1 |pages=111–124 |doi=10.1109/TSE.1975.6312825|s2cid=16485156}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Portability Issues
|url=https://www.gnu.org/software/sather/docs-1.2/tutorial/fortran-portability.html
|quote=.. discusses .. portability of .. Fortran}}</ref>

Software is [[Software portability|''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. This is distinct from [[cross-platform software]], which is designed from the ground up without any single "[[Native_(computing)|native]]" platform.