backward compatibility

jargon Able to share data or commands with older versions of

itself, or sometimes other older systems, particularly systems

it intends to supplant. Sometimes backward compatibility is

limited to being able to read old data but does not extend to

being able to write data in a format that can be read by old

versions.

For example, WordPerfect 6.0 can read WordPerfect 5.1 files,

so it is backward compatible. It can be said that Perl is

backward compatible with awk, because Perl was (among other

things) intended to replace awk, and can, with a converter,

run awk programs.

See also: backward combatability.

Compare: forward compatible.

(2003-06-23)