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De - Pt| English Dictionary: BCPL | by the DICT Development Group |
| 2 results for BCPL | |
| From Jargon File (4.2.0, 31 JAN 2000) [jargon]: | |
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BCPL // n. [abbreviation, `Basic Combined Programming Language') A programming language developed by Martin Richards in Cambridge in 1967. It is remarkable for its rich syntax, small size of compiler (it can be run in 16k) and extreme portability. It reached break-even point at a very early stage, and was the language in which the original {hello world} program was written. It has been ported to so many different systems that its creator confesses to having lost count. It has only one data type (a machine word) which can be used as an integer, a character, a floating point number, a pointer, or almost anything else, depending on context. BCPL was a precursor of C, which inherited some of its features. | |
| From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (15Feb98) [foldoc]: | |
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BCPL Richards in 1969 and descended from {CPL} (Combined Programming Language). BCPL is low-level, typeless and block-structured, and provides only one-dimensional {arrays}. Case is not significant, but conventionally reserved words begin with a capital. Flow control constructs include: If-Then, Test-Then-Else, Unless-Do, While-Do, Until-Do, Repeat, Repeatwhile, Repeatuntil, For-to-By-Do, Loop, Break and Switchon-Into-Case-Default-Endcase. BCPL has conditional expressions, pointers, and manifest constants. It has both procedures: 'Let foo(bar) Be command' and functions: 'Let foo(bar) = expression'. 'Valof $(..Resultis..$)' causes a compound command to produce a value. Parameters are {call-by-value}. Program segments communicate via the global vector where system and user variables are stored in fixed numerical locations in a single array. The first BCPL {compiler} was written in {AED}. BCPL was used to implement the {TRIPOS} {operating system}, which was subsequently reincarnated as {AmigaDOS}. ["BCPL - The Language and its Compiler", Martin Richards & Colin Whitby-Stevens, Cambridge U Press 1979]. See {OCODE}, {INTCODE}. Oxford BCPL differed slightly: Test-Ifso-Ifnot, and section brackets in place of $( $). The original {INTCODE} {interpreter} for BCPL is available for {Amiga}, {Unix}, {MS-DOS} {(ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/systems/amiga/programming/languages/BCPL/)}. A BCPL compiler {bootstrap} kit with an {INTCODE} {interpreter} in {C} was written by Ken Yap (1995-03-26) | |
