Work Flow Language

Work Flow Language

Work Flow Language, or WFL (pronounced wiffle) is the operations language for the Burroughs large systems, including the Unisys ClearPath/MCP series, and their operating system 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 scripts of Unix-like operating systems. Unlike JCL, WFL is a high-level structured language complete with subroutines (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 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 //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.

ee also

*Burroughs large systems


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно сделать НИР?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Flow (psychology) — Flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Proposed by positive psychologist Mihály… …   Wikipedia

  • Language education — Language Teaching redirects here. For the journal, see Language Teaching (journal). Linguistics …   Wikipedia

  • Flow-based programming — In computer science, flow based programming (FBP) is a programming paradigm that defines applications as networks of black box processes, which exchange data across predefined connections by message passing. These black box processes can be… …   Wikipedia

  • Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said — infobox Book | name = Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said title orig = translator = image caption = Cover of first edition (hardcover) author = Philip K. Dick illustrator = cover artist = country = USA language = English series = genre = Science… …   Wikipedia

  • language — /lang gwij/, n. 1. a body of words and the systems for their use common to a people who are of the same community or nation, the same geographical area, or the same cultural tradition: the two languages of Belgium; a Bantu language; the French… …   Universalium

  • Language interpretation — Interpreter redirects here. For the movie with the same title, see The Interpreter. For the band, see The Interpreters. For other uses, see Interpretation. Part of a series on …   Wikipedia

  • work, history of the organization of — Introduction       history of the methods by which society structures the activities and labour necessary to its survival. work is essential in providing the basic physical needs of food, clothing, and shelter. But work involves more than the use …   Universalium

  • Glossary of Unified Modeling Language terms — This glossary of Unified Modeling Language terms covers all versions of UML. Individual entries will point out any distinctions that exist between versions.A* Abstract An indicator applied to a classifier (e.g., actor, class, use case) or to some …   Wikipedia

  • Control flow — Not to be confused with Flow control. In computer science, control flow (or alternatively, flow of control) refers to the order in which the individual statements, instructions, or function calls of an imperative or a declarative program are… …   Wikipedia

  • Criticism of the APL programming language — The APL programming language has been used since the mid 1960s on mainframe computers and has itself evolved in step with computers and the computing market. APL is not widely used, but minimalistic and high level by design, at several points in… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
… Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”