Programming Language One (PL/1)

Old News ;-)	See also	Recommended Links	Books	Articles	Sample Programs	Humor	Etc

PL/1 was developed as an IBM product in the mid 1960's, and was originally named NPL (New Programming Language). The name was changed to PL/1 to avoid confusion of NPL with the National Physical Laboratory in England.

Until PL/1was developed, all previous languages had focused on one particluar area of application, such as science, artificial intelligence, or business. PL/1 was not designed to be used in the same way. It was the first large-scale attempt to design a language that could be used in a variety of application areas.

PL/1 was an Algol-60 style language that had the following significant language features:

PL/I is completely free form and has no reserved keywords.
It precisely defines it's data types without regard for any hardware.
In supported powerful exception handling and for almost 50 years remained the only language with such powerful and flexible exception handling mechanism.
PL/I is a block-oriented language. Programs can complied separately and consist of exception blocks (stopped co-routines), regular blocks (begin blocks), statements and subroutines. This type of structure allows the programmer to produce highly-modular applications.
PL/I contained very powerful set of control structures control structures which in some ways remains unsurpassable and that is far superior to what C language got (despite C being a derivate of PL1).
PL/I supports arrays, structures, unions, arrays of structures or unions, structures or unions of arrays, and combinations thereof.
PL/I provides four different storage classes: AUTOMATIC, STATIC, CONTROLLED, and BASED. Application objects' data type, representation, nature of use, etc... normally decides the type of storage class used for each.

Paradoxically PL/1 was never a success in the USA. In Europe PL/1 was used extensively in both business and scientific applications. In Eastern Europe PL/1 killed Cobol. However, it's popularity has drastically declined with the introduction of personal computers.

These are still a few companies were PL/1 is widely used (almost exclusively on mainframes) Among them is Ford.

Sample Programs

Hello world!

Bubble Sort

Recommended Books

Rich, Robert P. Internal Sorting Methods Illustrated with PL/I Programs. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1972.

Sebesta, Robert W. Concepts of Programming Languages. 3rd ed. Menlo Park: Addison-Wesley, 1996.

Abel, Peter Structured programming in PL/I and PL/C: a problem-solving approach Reston, VA, Reston Publishing Co., 1985; 571p. ISBN: 0-83597122-8
	Abrahams, Paul The PL/I Programming Language New York, NY, The Courant Instutute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University, 1979; 151p.
	Alber, K., Oliva, P., and Urschler, H. The Concrete Syntax of PL/I Vienna, At, IBM Laboratory, 1968 Technical Report TR 25.084
	Alber, K., and Oliva, P. Translation of PL/I into Abstract Text Vienna, At, IBM Laboratory, 1968 Technical Report TR 25.086
	Allen, C.D., et. al. An abstract interpreter of PL/I IBM United Kingdom Labs, 1966 Technical Note TN3004
	American National Standards Institute American National Standard: programming language PL/I New York, NY, American National Standards Institute, 1979 (Rev 1998); 403p. ANSI Standard X3.53-1976
	American National Standards Institute American National Standard: information systems - programming language - PL/I general-purpose subset New York, NY, American National Standards Institute, 1987; 449p. ANSI Standard X3.74-1987
	American National Standards Institute Information Processing Systems Technical Report Real-Time Extensions for PL/I (NOT AN AMERICAN NATIONAL STANDARD) New York, NY, American National Standards Institute, 1989. ANSI Standard ANSI X3/TR-7-1989
	Anderson, Mary Ellen PL/I for Business Applications Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall, 1973; 397p. ISBN: 0-136-76957-8
	Anklam, Patricia, et. al. Engineering a Compiler; VAX-11 Code Generation and Optimization Bedford, MA, Digital Press, 1982; 269p. ISBN: 0-932-37619-3
	Augenstein, Moshe and Tenenbaum, Aaron Data Structures and PL/I Programming Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall, 1979; 643p. ISBN: 0-131-97731-8
	Barnes, Robert Arthur PL/I for programmers New York, NY, North Holland, 1979; 561p. ISBN: 0-444-00284-7
	Bates, Frank, and Douglas, Mary L. Programming Language/One, 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall, 1970; 420p.
	Beech, D. et. al. Abstract Syntax of PL/I IBM United Kingdom Labs, 1966 Technical Note TN3002
	Beech, D. et. al. Concrete Syntax of PL/I IBM United Kingdom Labs, 1966 Technical Note TN3001
	Beech, D. Nicholls, J.E., and Rowe, R. A PL/I translator IBM United Kingdom Labs, 1966 Technical Note TN3003
	Brown, Gary DeWard Fortran to PL1 Dictionary PL/1 to Fortran Dictionary New York, NY, John Wiley and Sons, 1975 ISBN: 0-471-10796-4
	Clark, Frank James Introduction to PL/1 Programming Boston, MA, Allyn and Bacon, 1971; 244p.
	Conway, Richard Programming for Poets: A Gentle Introduction Using PL/1 Cambridge, MA, Winthrop Publishers, 1978; 347p. ISBN: 0-876-26724-X
	Conway, Richard, and Gries, David An Introduction to Programming. A Structured Approach Using PL/I and PL/C Cambridge, MA, Winthrop Publishers, Inc., 1973; 460p. ISBN: 0-876-26406-2
	Dadashzadeh, M. PL/1 Programming Language Essentials Piscataway, NJ, Research and Education Association, 1990; 112p. ISBN: 0-878-91695-4
	Davis, Charles Hargis Illustrative Computer Programming for Libraries Westport, CT, Greenwood Press, 1981; 129p. ISBN: 0-313-22151-0
	Davis, Kathi H., and Domina, Lyle Structured Programming: PL/I with PL/C New York, NY, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1988; 683p. ISBN: 0-030-03723-9
	Edwards, Leonard E. PL/I for Business Applications Reston, VA, Reston Pub. Co., 1973; 480p. ISBN: 0-879-09631-4, 0-879-09630-6
	Fike, C[harles]. T. PL/I for scientific programmers Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall, 1970; 241p.
	Fosdick, Howard Structured PL/I Programming: for textual and library processing Littleton, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 1982; 304p. ISBN: 0-872-87328-5
	Groner, Gabriel F. PL/I programming in technological applications New York, NY, Wiley-Interscience, 1971; 230p. ISBN: 0-471-32795-6
	Harrow, Keith, Goldberg, David E., and Langsam, Yedidyah Problem Solving Using PL/I and PL/C Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall, 1984
	Hughes, Joan Kirkby PL/I Structured Programming, 3rd Ed. New York, NY, John Wiley & Sons, 1987; 656p. ISBN: 0-471-83746-6
	Hughes, Joan K., and La Pearl, Barbara J. Structured Programming Using PL/C New York, NY, John Wiley & Sons, 1981; 414p. ISBN: 0-471-04969-7
	IBM Corporation A Guide to PL/I for Commercial Programmers White Plains, NY, International Business Machines Corp. IBM Publication number C20-1651
	IBM Corporation A Guide to PL/I for FORTRAN Users White Plains, NY, International Business Machines Corp., 1967; 36p. IBM Publication number C20-1637
	IBM Corporation An Introduction to Structured Programming in PL/I White Plains, NY, International Business Machines Corp., 1967; 51p. IBM Publication number SC20-1777-1
	IBM Corporation An Introduction to the List Processing Facilities of PL/I White Plains, NY, International Business Machines Corp., 1971; 87p. IBM Publication number GF20-0015-1
	IBM Corporation Student Language - A Teaching Subset of PL/I - Teaching Guide White Plains, NY, International Business Machines Corp. IBM Publication number GR09-0004-1
	IBM Corporation Student Text; A PL/I Primer White Plains, NY, International Business Machines Corp., 1977; 72p. IBM Publication number C28-6808-0
	Kennedy, Michael, and Solomon, Martin B. Structured PL/zero plus PL/one Englewood Cliffs, NY, Prentice-Hall, 1977; 695p. ISBN: 0-138-54901-X
	Lamie, Edward L. PL/I Programming: A Structured, Disciplined Approach Belmont, CA, Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1982; 330p. ISBN: 0-534-01067-9
	Lecht, Charles Philip The Programmer's PL/I; a Complete Reference. Forward by Robert Bemer New York, NY, McGraw-Hill, 1968; 427p.
	Lewi, Johan, and Pardaens, Jan Data Structures of Pascal, Algol 68, PL/I, and Ada New York, Springer-Verlag, 1986; 395p. ISBN: 0-387-15121-4
	Logicon, inc. Guide to PL/I / prepared under contract F19628-67-C-0396 by Logicon Incorporated Detroit, MI, American Data Processing, inc., 1969; 2v.
	Lucas, P., et. al. Informal Introduction to the abstract syntax and interpretation of PL/I Vienna, At, IBM Laboratory, 1968 Technical Report TR 25.083
	Mott, Thomas H., Artandi, Susan, and Struminger, Leny Introduction to PL/1 Programming for Library and Information Science New York, NY, Academic Press, 1972; 231p.
	Pollack, S.V., and Sterling, T.D. A Guide to PL/I New York, NY, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.,1969; 556p.
	Pritsker, A. Alan B., and Young, Robert E. Simulation with GASP-PL/I: a PL/I based continuous/discrete simulation language New York, NY, Wiley, 1975; 351p. ISBN: 0-471-70046-0, 0-608-11634-3
	Reddy, Rama N. and Ziegler, Carol A. PL/I: Structured Programming and Problem Solving Saint Paul, MN, West Publishing Company, 1986; 739p. ISBN: 0-314-93915-6
	Rich, Robert P. Internal sorting methods illustrated with PL/1 programs Englewood Cliffs, NJ., Prentice-Hall, 1972; 154p. ISBN: 0-134-72357-0
	SHARE Inc. The PL/I programming project techniques library Chicago, IL, SHARE, Inc., 1975; 129p.
	Shelly, Gary B., and Cashman, Thomas J. Introduction to Computer Programming IBM System/360 PL/I Fullerton, CA, Anaheim Publishers, 1978 ISBN: 0-882-36190-2
	Shortt, Joseph, and Wilson, Thomas C. Problem solving and the Computer: A structured Concept with PL/I (PL/C) Reading, MA, Addison-Wesley, 1976; 372p. ISBN: 0-201-06916-4
	Sprowls, R. Clay PL/C: a processor for PL/I San Francisco, CA, Canfield Press, 1972; 247p. ISBN: 0-063-88591-3
	Sterling, Theodor D. and Pollack, Seymour V. Computing & Computer Science; A First Course with PL/I New York, NY, Macmillan Co., 1970; 414p.
	Stoutemyer, David R. PL/I Programming for Engineering and Science Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall, 1971; 363p. ISBN: 0-136-76528-9
	Tremblay, Jean-Paul, and Sorenson, Paul G. An Implementation Guide to Compiler Writing New York, NY, McGraw-Hill, 1982 ISBN: 0-070-65166-3
	Vowels, Robin A. Introduction to PL/I, Algorithms and Structured Programming, 3rd Ed. Parkville, Vic. AU, Robin Vowels, 1998 ISBN: 0-959-63849-0 [includes disc]
	Walk, K., et. al. Abstract syntax for interpretation of PL/I Vienna, At, IBM Laboratory, 1968 Technical Report TR 25.082
	Weinberg, Gerald M. PL/I Programming: A Manual of Style New York, NY, McGraw-Hill, 1970; 441p.
	Weinberg, Gerald M. PL/I Programming Primer New York, NY, McGraw-Hill, 1966; 278p.
	Weinberg, Gerald M., Yasukawa, Norie, and Marcus, Robert Structured Programming in PL/C; an Abecedarian New York, NY, John R. Wiley and Sons, 1973; 220p.
	Weiss, Eric A. The PL/1 Converter New York, NY, McGraw-Hill, 1966; 113p.
	Yalow, Edward C. YAQ: A 360 Assembler Version of the Algorithm A and Comparison with other PL/I Programs Urbana-Champaign, IL, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1977; 31p.

[Books]

Articles:

	Abrahams, Paul W. "The CIMS PL/I Compiler" Proceedings of the SIGPLAN Symposium on Compiler Construction Denver, CO; Aug 6-10, 1979; 107-116.
	Abrahams, Paul "The PL/I Standard: An Apostate's View" ACM SIGPLAN Notices, Sep 1979; 15-16.
	Abrahams, Paul W. "Subset/G PL/I and the PL/I Standard" Proceedings of the 1983 Annual Conference on Computers: Extending the Human Resource, 1983; 130-132.
	Adams, J. Mack, Inmon, William H., and Shirley, Jim. "PL/I in the computer science curriculum" Papers of the second ACM SIGCSE symposium on Education in computer science, 1972; 116-126.
	Barnes, Richard "A Working Definition of the Proposed Extensions for PL/I Real-Time Applications" ACM SIGPLAN Notices, Oct 1979; 77-99.
	Battarel, G.J., and Chevance, R.J. "Requirements for a Safe PL/1 Implementation" ACM SIGPLAN Notices, May 1978; 12-22.
	Beech, D. "A structural view of PL/I" Computing Surveys 2(1970); 33-64.
	Beech, David, and Marcotty, Michael "Unfurling the PL/I Standard" ACM SIGPLAN Notices, Oct 1973; 12-43.
	Boulton, P.I.P., and Jeanes, D.L. "The Structure and Performance of PLUTO, a Teaching Oriented PL/I Compiler System" INFOR, Jun 1972; 140-153.
	Burkhardt, Walter H. "PL/I: An Evaluation" Datamation, Nov 1966; 31-39.
	Busam, Vincent A. "A dictionary structure for a PL/I compiler" International Journal of Parallel Programming 1.3 (1972): 235-253.
	Chroust, Gerhard "History of PL/I" ICNL, 9(1978); p.148.
	Conrow, Kenneth, and Smith, Ronald G. "NEATER2: a PL/I source statement reformatter" CACM 13(1970); 669-675.
	Conway, Richard W., and Wilcox, Thomas R. "Design and implementation of a diagnostic compiler for PL/I" CACM 16(1973); 169-179.
	Corbató, F. J. "PL/I as a Tool for System Programming" Datamation, 6 May 1969; 68-76.
	Elshoff, James L. "A Numerical Profile of Commercial PL/I Programs" Software—Practice and Experience 6(1976): 505-525.
	Elshoff, James L. "The Influence of Structured Programming on PL/I Program Profiles" IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 3(1977): 364-368.
	Elshoff, James L. "A Study of the Structural Composition of PL/I Programs" ACM SIGPLAN Notices, Jun 1978; 29-37.
	Elson,M., and Rake, S.T. "Code-generation technique for large-language compilers" IBM Systems Journal 9(1970):166-188.
	Epley, Donald, and Sjoerdsma, Ted. "A two-semester course sequence in introductory programming using PL/1 - a rationale and overview" The papers of the ACM SIGCSE ninth technical symposium on Computer science education, 1978; 113-119.
	Frantz, Donald G. "A PL/1 program to assist the comparative linguist" CACM 13(1970); 353-356.
	Freiburghouse, R.A. "The Multics PL/I Compiler" AFIPS Conference Proceedings: 1969 Fall Joint Computer Conference, Nov 1969; 187-199.
	Gauthier, Richard L. "PL/I compile time facilities" Datamation, Dec 1968; 32-34.
	Hac, Anna "PL/I as a Discrete Event Simulation Tool" Software - Practice and Experience 14(1984):697-702.
	Harrow, Keith, Langsam, Yedidyah, and Goldberg, David E. "Teaching PL/I Using a Microcomputer" ACM SIGCSE Bulletin Sep 1986:19-25.
	Hopkins, Mark "SABRE/PLI" Datamation, Dec 1968; 35-38.
	Hopkins, Martin "Problems of PL/I for System Programming" Proceedings of the SIGPLAN symposium on Languages for System Implementation, Oct 1971; 89-91.
	Irwin, Larry "Implementing phrase-structure productions in PL/I" CACM 10(1967); 424.
	Jalics, Paul J. "Cobol vs. PL/1: some performance comparisons" CACM 27(1984); 216-221.
	Lawson, Harold W. "PL/I list processing" CACM 10(1967); 358-367.
	Lucas, P., and Walk, K. "On the formal description of PL/I" Annual Review of Automatic Programming 6(1969): 105-182.
	Marco, Lou "In Praise of PL/I" Enterprise Systems Journal, Dec 1995; 32-37.
	MacLaren, M. Donald "Exception handling in PL/I" Proceedings of an ACM conference on Language design for reliable software, Mar, 1977; 101-104.
	McCracken, Daniel D. "The New Programming Language" Datamation, Jul 1964; 31-36.
	Myers, G.J. "Composite design facilities of six programming languages" IBM Systems Journal 15(1976): 212-224.
	Pantages, Angela "Language Objectives of the Late 60's" Datamation, Nov 1965; 141-142.
	Pohl, Ira "Phas-structure productions in PL/I: Phas-structure productions in PL/I0" CACM 10(1967); 757.
	Radin, George "The Early History and Characteristics of PL/I" ACM SIGPLAN History of Programming Languages Conference, Jun 1978; 227-241.
	Rubey, Raymond J. "A comparative evaluation of PL/I" Datamation, Dec 1968; 22-25.
	Schroeder, E.B. "Odes to a new language" Datamation, Dec 1968; 39. [verse]
	Shaw, Christopher J. "PL/I for C&C" Datamation, Dec 1968; 26-31.
	Sibley, R.A. "A New Programming Language: PL/I" Proceedings of the 20th National Conf., Assoc. for Computing Machinery (1965):543-563.
	Siler, Kenneth F. "A PL/I model of an emergency medical system" Proceedings of the 6th Conference on Winter Simulation, Assoc. for Computing Machinery (1973):882.
	Sitton, Gary A., Kendrick, Thomas A., and Carrick, jr., A. Gil. "The PL/EXUS Language and Virtual Machine" Proceedings of the ACM-IEEE symposium on high-level-language computer architecture, Nov 1973:124-130.
	Sugimoto, Masakatsu "PL/I Reducer and Direct Parser" Proceedings of the 24th National Conf., Assoc. for Computing Machinery (1969):519-538.
	Symonds, A.J. "Interactive Graphics in Data Processing: Auxiliary-storage associative data structure for PL/I" IBM Systems Journal 7(1968):229-245.
	Tenny, T. "Program Readability: Procedures vs. Comments" IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering; 14(1988): 1271-1279.
	Vowels, Robin A. "PL/I for OS/2" ACM SIGPLAN Notices, March 1996; 22-27.
	Voysey, Hedley "PL/I in the UK" Datamation, Sep 1967; 73-74.
	Wade, Bradford W., and Schneider, Victor B. "A general-purpose high-level language machine for minicomputers" Proceedings of the meeting on SIGPLAN/SIGMICRO interface, May 1973:169-171.
	Wagner, R.A., and Morgan, H.L. "PL/C: The design of a high performance compiler for PL/I" AFIPS Conference Proceedings: 1971 Spring Joint Computer Conference, 1971; 503-510.
	Wegner, P. "The Vienna Definition Language" Computing Surveys 4(1972): 5-63.
	Weisert, Conrad "Has the King Returned?" ACM SIGPLAN Notices, April, 1993; 9-10.
	Wolman, Barry L. "Debugging PL/I Programs in the Multics Environment" AFIPS Conference Proceedings: 1972 Fall Joint Computer Conference, 1972; 507-514.
	Wortman, D. B. "Student PL - A PL/I Dialect Designed for Teaching" Proceedings of Canadian Computer Conference, Montreal, Jun 1972
	Wortman, David B., Khaiat, Phillip J., and Lasker, David M. "Six PL/I Compilers" Software—Practice and Experience 6.3 (1976): 411-422

Copyright © 1996-2009 by Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov. www.softpanorama.org was created as a service to the UN Sustainable Development Networking Programme (SDNP) in the author free time. Submit comments This document is an industrial compilation designed and created exclusively for educational use and is placed under the copyright of the Open Content License(OPL). Site uses AdSense so you need to be aware of Google privacy policy. Original materials copyright belong to respective owners. Quotes are made for educational purposes only in compliance with the fair use doctrine.

Disclaimer:

The statements, views and opinions presented on this web page are those of the author and are not endorsed by, nor do they necessarily reflect, the opinions of the author present and former employers, SDNP or any other organization the author may be associated with.
We do not warrant the correctness of the information provided or its fitness for any purpose
In no way this site is associated with or endorse cybersquatters using the term "softpanorama" with other main or country domains (e.g. softpanorama.com) with bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill belonging to someone else.

Last modified: August 09, 2009

Programming Language One (PL/1)

Recommended Links

Recommended Books

Articles: