According to the GNU convention, there are three platforms involved in the software building:
When you are building code for your own machine it’s called native building, where the build
and the host
platforms are the same. The target
platform is not defined in this situation.
When you are building code for a different platform, it’s called cross-building, where the build
platform is different from the host
platform. The target
platform is not defined in this situation.
The use of the target
platform is rarely needed. It only makes sense when you are building a compiler. For instance, when you are building on your Linux machine a GCC compiler that will run on Windows, to generate code for Android. Here, the build
is your Linux computer, the host
is the Windows computer and the target
is Android.
https://docs.conan.io/en/latest/systems_cross_building/cross_building.html#cross-building-android