DYNAMIC EXECUTION LAYER INTERFACE FOR REPLACING INSTRUCTIONS REQUIRING UNAVAILABLE HARDWARE FUNCTIONALITY WITH PATCH CODE AND CACHING

A system and method for dynamically patching code. In one embodiment, a method includes intercepting original program instructions during execution of the program using a software interface, determining whether associated instructions have been cached in a code cache of the software interface and, if so, executing the cached instructions from the code cache, if associated instructions have not been cached, determining if the original program instructions require unavailable hardware functionality, and dynamically replacing the original program instructions with replacement instructions that do not require unavailable hardware functionality if it is determined that the original program instructions require unavailable hardware functionality, the dynamic replacing including fetching replacing instructions, storing the replacement instructions in the code cache, and executing the replacement instructions from the code cache.