music

OSdata.com

PL/I
Programming Language One

OSdata.com is used in more than 300 colleges and universities around the world

Find out how to get similar high web traffic and search engine placement.

general
history
Hello World
structure
further reading: books on PL/I

general

nature: procedural language

history: Work on PL/I started in 1963. PL/I (Programming Language One) was created in 1964 at IBM’s Hursley Laboratories in the United Kingdom. PL/I was intended as an all-purpose langauge to combine the scientific abilities of FORTRAN with the business capabilities of COBOL, plus additional facilities for systems programming. Also borrows from ALGOL 60. Originally called NPL, or New Programming Language. Introduces storage classes (automatic, static, controlled, and based), exception processing (On conditions), Select When Otherwise conditional structure, and several variations of the DO loop. Numerous data types, including control over precision.

Hello World example

HELLO: PROCEDURE OPTIONS (MAIN);
PUT SKIP LIST('HELLO WORLD');
END HELLO;

structure

format: free form; block structured

lexical elements

source code character set: PL/I has a 60 character source code character set: an extended alphabet of 29 characters ( $ @ # A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z ), the 10 decimal digits ( 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ), and 21 special characters ( blank = + - * / ( ) , . ' % ; : ¬ & | > < _ ? ). Some kind of line break or record separator may be used with some input devices.

alternative characters: A special 48 character set is available for older hardware. In the 48 character set, the at sign (@), pound sign (#), break (underscore _), and question mark (?) characters are dropped. 12 operators are reserved keywords (and must be surrounded on both sides by one or more space characters):

operation	60 character set	48 character set
colon	:	..
semicolon	;	,.
concatenation	\|\|	CAT
greater than	>	GT
greater than or equal	>=	GE
less than	<	LT
less than or equal	<=	LE
not less than	¬<	NL
not greater than	¬>	NG
not equal	¬=	NE
not	¬	NOT
or	\|	OR
and	&	AND
points to	->	PT

A PROCESS statement of the following form must be used specify the 48-character option:

*PROCESS CHARSET (48),.

If the 48 character set is specified, the programmer may use any character from the 60 character set except pound (#), at sign (@), question mark (?), or underscore (_). If the 60 character set (the default) is used, none of the special operators are reserved words and can not be used for their special meanings.

further reading: books:

If you want your book reviewed, please send a copy to: Milo, POB 1361, Tustin, CA 92781, USA.

Price listings are for courtesy purposes only and may be changed by the referenced businesses at any time without notice.

Pl/1 Structured Programming; 3rd edition; by Joan Kirkby Hughes; John Wiley & Sons; June 1986; ISBN 0471837466; paperback; 639 pages; $70.60

If you want your book reviewed, please send a copy to: Milo, POB 1361, Tustin, CA 92781, USA.

OSdata.com is used in more than 300 colleges and universities around the world

Read details here.

Some or all of the material on this web page appears in the
free downloadable college text book on computer programming.

Tweets by @osdata

A web site on dozens of operating systems simply can’t be maintained by one person. This is a cooperative effort. If you spot an error in fact, grammar, syntax, or spelling, or a broken link, or have additional information, commentary, or constructive criticism, please e-mail Milo. If you have any extra copies of docs, manuals, or other materials that can assist in accuracy and completeness, please send them to Milo, PO Box 1361, Tustin, CA, USA, 92781.

Click here for our privacy policy.