bytecode

Bytecode serves as a bridge between high-level programming languages and the actual hardware. It is not intended for human readability, nor is it native machine code; instead, it is a compact, numeric representation that ensures a program can run on any device equipped with a compatible virtual machine, regardless of the underlying operating system or CPU architecture.

In technical discourse, the term is most frequently associated with the Java ecosystem, though it applies to other languages like Python or C# (via Common Intermediate Language). It is typically treated as a mass noun in technical documentation, referring to the collective output of a compiler rather than individual units of code.