Source code compatibility

Source code compatibility (source compatible) means that a program can run on computers (or operating systems), independently of binary code compatibility and that the source code is needed for portability.

The source code must be compiled before running, unless the computer used has an interpreter for the language at hand. The term is also used for assembly language compatibility, where the source is a human-readable form of machine code that must be converted into numerical (i.e. executable) machine code by an assembler. This is different from binary code compatibility, where no recompilation (or assembly) is needed.