Program loading and execution. Once a program is assembled or compiled, it must be loaded into memory to be executed. The system may provide absolute loaders, relocatable loaders, linkage editors, and overlay loaders. Debugging systems for either higher-level languages or machine language are needed as well.
Program loading and execution services handle the process of getting compiled programs into memory so they can run. These include loaders (absolute, relocatable, overlay) and tools like linkage editors. Debugging support is also part of this category, helping programmers test and fix errors in either high-level code or machine language.