A cross compiler is a compiler capable of creating executable code for a platform other than the one on which the compiler is running. Cross compiler tools are used to generate executables for embedded system or multiple platforms. It is used to compile for a platform upon which it is not feasible to do the compiling, like microcontrollers that don't support an operating system. It has become more common to use this tool for paravirtualization where a system may have one or more platforms in use.
Not targeted by this definition are source to source translators, which are often mistakenly called cross compilers.
Read more about Cross Compiler: Uses of Cross Compilers, Canadian Cross, Timeline of Early Cross Compilers, GCC and Cross Compilation, Manx Aztec C Cross Compilers, Free Pascal
Famous quotes containing the word cross:
“It is an agreeable change to cross a lake, after you have been shut up in the woods, not only on account of the greater expanse of water, but also of sky. It is one of the surprises which Nature has in store for the traveler in the forest. To look down, in this case, over eighteen miles of water, was liberating and civilizing even.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)