Software package

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A software package is a bundle of one or several files that either are necessary for the execution of a computer program, or add features for a program already installed on the computer or network of computers. Software packages can either be in a standardised package format to be installed by a program that is integrated with the operating system, or be a self-sufficient installer. This latter approach is commonly used by distributors of commercial, closed-source software, particularly for installation on Microsoft Windows, and less often for Mac OS X, whereas more traditional and particularly free Unix-like operating systems favour the use of standardised formats that are extensions of file archive formats.

The term software package is also used in object-oriented programming to name a group of related classes of a program. In this meaning, packages are especially useful to measure and control the inherent coupling of a program.

In a modular program, even outside OOP, the term "software package" may refer to any component (see also module) that can be integrated into the main program through a well-defined interface and, typically, by the end user. In other contexts, the integration must occur at source code level, therefore requiring the knowledge of a given programming language.

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