Abstract: The compression boundary layer transition and separation caused by the interference of the shock and the boundary layer directly affect the drag, surface thermal protection and the flight performance of flying vehicles. This paper first reviews the past work on the interference between the shock wave and the boundary layer. And then, the effects of the forward shock, the oblique shock and the head shock on the laminar flow and the turbulent boundary layer of supersonic and transonic flows are studied and compared. The shock waves of different intensities have different effects on the boundary layer.A strong interference is more likely to cause the separation and the airfoil stall.