Software-defined networking (SDN) initially appeared as a new network management technology aimed at improving network performance. Since 2013, SDN associated with OpenFlow protocol (a communication protocol) has become an industry standard. However, SDN-related protocols need to specify their headers on the hardware device they operate, which limits the flexibility for targeting different devices and increases the complexity for future protocol expansion. To address this problem, the P4

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... e was introduced as a protocol-independent programming language for describing the process of network data packets and now has been widely used in many different devices, such as Application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), Fieldprogrammable gate array (FPGA), Network interface card (NIC), CPU etc. through the corresponding compiler. The purpose of this survey is to present the latest varieties of P4 compilers, including their respective characteristics and target equipment.