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A parallel [[programming language]] developed by [[Inmos]] for their line of [[Transputer]]s. Implementations for other platforms exist as well.
Occam builds on [[Communication Sequential Processes]] and shares much of the same features. It is, in a way, a practical implementation of CSP. Occam is a [[procedural programming|procedural]] language, similar to [[Pascal programming language|Pascal]] etc.
One peculiarity (also found in [[Python programming language|
▲One peculiarity (also found in [[Python programming language|Pyhton]]) necessary to understand the examples below is that indentation and formatting is critical: expressions are terminated by the end of the line, list of expressions need to be on the same level of indentation.
The most interesting language constructs are described in the following.
Communication between processes work through named ''channels''. One process outputs data to a channel via '''!''' while another one inputs data with '''?'''. Input and output will block until the other end is ready to accept or offer data. Examples (c is a variable):
keyboard ? c
screen ! c
'''SEQ''' introduces a list of expressions that are evaluated sequentially. This is not implicit as it is in most other programming languages. Example:
SEQ
x := x + 1
y := x * x
'''PAR''' begins a list of expressions that may be evaluated concurrently. Example:
PAR
x := x + 1
y := y * 2
'''ALT''' specifies a list of ''guarded'' commands. The ''guards'' are combination of a boolean condition and an input expression (both optional). Each guard for which the condition is true and the input channel is ready is successful. One of the successful alternatives is selected for execution. Example:
ALT
count1 < 100 & c1 ? data
SEQ
count1 := count1 + 1
merged ! data
count2 < 100 & c2 ? data
SEQ
count2 := count2 + 1
merged ! data
status ? request
SEQ
out ! count1
out ! count2
This will read data from channels c1 or c2 (whichever is ready) and pass it into a merged channel. If countN reaches 100, reads from the corresponding channel will be disabled. A request on the status channel is answered by outputting the counts to out.
Documentation and implementations are available from the
[http://wotug.ukc.ac.uk/parallel/occam/ Internet Parallel Computing Archive: Occam]
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