Work Flow Language: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 12:18, 10 December 2008

Revision as of 12:19, 10 December 2008

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'''Work Flow Language''', or '''WFL''' (pronounced wiffle) is the [[operations language]] for the [[Burroughs large systems]], including the [[Unisys]] [[Burroughs MCP|ClearPath/MCP]] series, and their [[operating system]] [[Burroughs MCP|Master Control Program]]. Developed soon after the B5000 in 1961, WFL is the ClearPath equivalent of the [[Job Control Language]] (JCL) on [[IBM]] mainframes and the [[shell script]]s of [[Unix-like]] operating systems. Unlike JCL, WFL is a high-level structured language complete with [[subroutine]]s (procedures and functions) with [[Parameter (computer science)|arguments]] and high-level program [[control flow]] instructions. WFL programs are [[compiler|compiled]] so that they don't fail on statements during the run of a WFL job.

WFL<ref></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 can open and close files to check their attributes for example; however, you cannot read or change their contents 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 low-level assembler-like commands of JCL like <code>//SYSIN DD</code>, 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.