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Guy Harris (talk | contribs) Mention the iBCS in the Description section, along with the SVR4 ABIs. |
grammar correction on paragraph 3 of top summary |
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An ABI is at a relatively low-level of [[abstraction (computer science)|abstraction]]. Interface compatibility depends on the target [[computer hardware|hardware]] and the [[software build]] [[toolchain]]. In contrast, an [[application programming interface]] (API) defines access in [[source code]] which is a relatively high-level, hardware-independent, and [[human-readable]] format. An API defines interface at the source code level, before compilation, whereas an ABI defines an interface to compiled code.
API compatibility is generally the concern for [[system design]] and of the toolchain. However, a [[programmer]] may have to deal with an ABI directly when writing a program in
A complete ABI enables a program that supports an ABI to run without modification on multiple operating systems that provide the ABI. The target system must provide any required libraries (that implement the ABI), and there may be other prerequisites.
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