Runtime library

Article summary

A runtime library is a library that provides access to the runtime environment that is available to a computer program tailored to the host platform. A runtime environment implements the execution model as required for a development environment such as a particular programming language. A runtime library may provide basic program facilities such as for memory management and exception handling. A runtime library is an artifact of the design of the toolchain used to build the program not inherently required by the host operating system or the programming language in which the program is written. The toolset is designed to abstract aspects of the host platform often to simplify tool development. The toolchain builds a program to depend on a runtime library and to use it while the program is running at program run-time. The runtime library may directly implement runtime behavior, but often it is a thin wrapper on top of operating system facilities. For example, some language features that can be performed only (or are more efficient or accurate) at runtime are implemented in the runtime environment and may be invoked via the runtime library API, e.g. some logic errors, array bounds checking, dynamic type checking, exception handling, and possibly debugging functionality.…

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