ABC

1. language An imperative language and programming

environment from CWI, Netherlands. It is interactive,

structured, high-level, and easy to learn and use. It is a

general-purpose language which you might use instead of

BASIC, Pascal or AWK. It is not a systems-programming

language but is good for teaching or prototyping.

ABC has only five data types that can easily be combined;

strong typing, yet without declarations; data limited only

by memory; refinements to support top-down programming;

nesting by indentation. Programs are typically around a

quarter the size of the equivalent Pascal or C program,

and more readable.

ABC includes a programming environment with syntax-directed

editing, suggestions, persistent variables and multiple

workspaces and infinite precision arithmetic.

An example function words to collect the set of all words in a

document:

HOW TO RETURN words document:

PUT IN collection

FOR line in document:

FOR word IN split line:

IF word not.in collection:

INSERT word IN collection

RETURN collection

Interpreter/compiler, version 1.04.01, by Leo Geurts,

Lambert Meertens, Steven Pemberton [email protected].

ABC has been ported to Unix, MS-DOS, Atari, Macintosh.

Home .

FTP eu.net ,

FTP nluug.nl ,

FTP uunet .

Mailing list: [email protected].

E-mail: [email protected].

["The ABC Programmer's Handbook" by Leo Geurts, Lambert

Meertens and Steven Pemberton, published by Prentice-Hall

(ISBN 0-13-000027-2)].

["An Alternative Simple Language and Environment for PCs" by

Steven Pemberton, IEEE Software, Vol. 4, No. 1, January 1987,

pp. 56-64.]

(1995-02-09)

2. language Argument, Basic value, C?.

An abstract machine for implementation of functionallanguages and its intermediate code.

[P. Koopman, "Functional Programs as Executable

Specifications", 1990].

(1995-02-09)