Content deleted Content added
Ian Joyner (talk | contribs) First created |
Disagree with the suggestion to delete. Merging with the Burroughs Large Systems article is the better option in my opinion as WFL is a distinct enough language from JCL and was integral to a product line sold by a company of notable influence in the history of computing. This makes WFL, in my opinion, notable enough to at least include as a subsection in the aforementioned article. |
||
| (53 intermediate revisions by 33 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
'''Work Flow Language''', or '''WFL''' (
WFL<ref>Work Flow Language (WFL) Programming Reference Manual. ClearPath MCP Release 10.0 or Later. 8600 1047-507 Unisys Corporation. 2005</ref> is used for high-level system operations, such as running tasks, moving and copying files, providing high-level recoverability. Thus it is not a general purpose language in that you would not use it to do general computations. You
▲Work Flow Language, or WFL (pronounced woofle) was developed for the B5000 line of computers and is still used as the operations language on the Unisys ClearParh/MCP range of machines. Developed soon after the B5000, WFL is the ClearPath equivalent of JCL on other machines and the shell scripts of Unix-style operating systems. Unlike JCL and shell scripts though, WFL is a high-level structured language complete with routines (procedures and functions) with arguments and high-level program control flow instructions. WFL programs are compiled so that they don't fail on statements during the run of a WFL job.
WFL has a high-level [[ALGOL]]-like readable syntax. It has none of the
▲WFL is used for high-level system operations, such as running tasks, moving and copying files, providing high-level recoverability. Thus it is not a general purpose language in that you would not use it to do general computations. You cannot open and close files, or change the contents of files in WFL – that you do in a general purpose language, and invoke it as a task from WFL.
▲WFL has a high-level ALGOL-like readable syntax. It has none of the cryptic low-level assembler-like commands of JCL like //SYSIN DD, etc in order to connect hardware devices and open files for programs. All WFL constructs deal with the high-level abstractions of tasks and files. Parameters are also real HLL parameters, not the $1, $2... style position parameters of shell scripts.
WFL also has an instruction block command which is used to give operators instructions needed to run the current job. These instructions are displayed using the 'IB' operator command.
WFL was a compiled language on the medium systems. Because some OS interfaces may change from release to release, Medium Systems WFL code included a copy of the source in the object file. Upon executing a WFL job it would check to determine if the object was compatible with the OS version. If not it would trigger a recompile of the object using the source embedded in the object code.
==See also==
*[[Burroughs large systems]]
==Sources==
<references/>
[[Category:ALGOL 60 dialect]]
[[Category:Burroughs mainframe computers]]
[[Category:Scripting languages]]
[[Category:Mainframe computer software]]
| |||