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Pascal Programming Arieus Green Professor Gary Smith Sam Houston State University Pascal was designed in 1968, but was no published until the 1970 by the mind of a man named Niklaus Wirth. Niklaus Wirth was born in Winterthur, Switzerland in 1934 were he attended Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. Where he soon earns his degree in Electronic Engineering by the mid 1960’s. Pascal was named based off the memory of the late Baise Pascal, a famous French Philosopher as well as a major mathematician (Bill Catambay). This particular language was inspired by Algol along with Simula 67.
Although pascal resembles Algol, It far surpasses it in run precision and capabilities. Pascal was designed to be a straight forward block Structured programming. Pascal structurally sound functionality provided the way for several new languages we use today for example, Ada, Java, Modula and so many others. Pascal was design to farther educate the development of a systematically discipline construct. Pascal was initially designed to influence the practice of good or better program design. The language in particular is an imperative and procedural programming language (Bill Catambay).
Imperative programming language simply describes the computation of each term as a statement. This important detail makes it easier to produce a programming code, it also has the capacity to use structure programming alongside with data structuring. All of these things take care of the clarity as well as the quality of each program written in pascal. By this time pascal has been at the top of its game being both reliable as well as efficient. Pascal is a strongly typed, block structure programming language (Bill Catambay). It has evolved with enough power to run home projects, commercial industries and many other entures.
Wirth was very particular when the designs were planned out. Much of the pascal language is similar to what we see in our C or Java languages. Some of its features make pascal easy to understand and maintain. The programming Structure of pascal consist of; program name, uses command type, declarations, Statements data object and or functions. Every Pascal program has a heading statement, a declaration and execution in that exact order. Basic syntax variable are placed in the beginning of a statement, followed by a definition of some sort. Declaring a variable s straight forward in the design of pascal.
By using keywords like var allows the programmer a number of abilities. Which include declaring string, integers, records and other defining types. This is followed by the capability to use functions and procedures. In Pascal procedures are instructions to execute within the program with no return. Functions are similar in attributes with the exception of having a return value. Like Ada, Pascal is not case sensitive. Pascal Programs are generally formed by several statements. Every statement gives the program a Job by stating or defining xactly what that Job is.
Each Job should consist of declarations, assignment, reading or writing data and taking logical statements. Similar to other languages, Pascal has words on reserved such as array, begin and end. These words you would not be allowed use as a variable and to declare any value. Pascal also has a number of different data types that include the standard, integer, real, Boolean and structured array records and file. These constants make it easier for the programmer to read. Pascal has the ability to use numerical, logical, string and character constants.
Pascal as many other types, the enumerated type is a data type defined by the user. They give most value the qualification to be specified in a list. Pascal uses variable as a define storage space. Operators are used in every programming language in pascal uses as manipulations of mathematical or logical functionality. There is a list of operators used in pascal involving arithmetic, relations, Boolean, bit, set and string Operands. Each operand has a different responsibility and implementation. Pascal decision making is design for the programmer to specify all condition to evaluated and test by the program.
All statements have to have a true or false result and or reroute to another statement of the programmer’s choice. Helping with these logic statement would me key words like if-then, if-then-else, nest-if statement and many more (Micheal Van Cannegt). These statements can lead one to a loop, where some code that is to be executed multiple times. A loop is usually executed in a specific order the first followed by the second and so on. Pascal also has loop control statement feature that will allow breaks which can call for the termination of a loop or any case statement that has out grown its parameter.
Goto statements can transfer control but this feature is not often used. Programmer use a number of small sections of code called subprogram (Victor John Saliba). Every one of these subprograms preforms a particular task as modules. There are two kinds of subprograms function and procedure. Functions are small programs that have a single return value of some variety. Every pascal has to have as many as one function to call it a program and other smaller program to define added functionalities. Pascal functions usually consist of a header, the declaration and a body.
The function eader has only two main objects, the keyword and the name of that function. There are many other part to a function, by which include the argument, this is often where the programmer calls the program and the formal parameters. The formal parameter could be an array, subprogram or structured variables. The declaration function simply speaks to the compiler giving it instructions on how to call that specific program it ultimately has the same attributes as the function subprogram. The difference being in the format of the keywords, which is procedure being one of them nstead of function.
Pascal file handling capabilities are second to none and are very simple to generate. For instant, notice that there is not a word on reserve for the reading or writing to a file, the usual format to use is “readln()” or “writeln()”. When reading a file the base type could be an integer real, Boolean, enumerator, subrange, record, arrays each one but certain other file types. Pascal was a powerful language and tool in 1970’s and has become a more advanced language over time. Pascal has been through a few update and changes to the language.
In being this reliable and fficient Pascal will continue to be of use in the near future. References http://www. freepascal. org/advantage. var ftp://ftp. freepascal. org/pub/fpc/docs-pdf/ref. pdf, Reference guide for Free Pascal, version 2. 6. 2 Document version 2. 6. February 2013 http://www. pascal-central. com/ppl/chapter2. html. The Pascal Programming Language. Bill Catambay. 0 2001 Academic Press. http://pascal-programming. info/ index. php. pascal Programming. Victor John Saliba 2006. http://www. computerhistory. org/fellowawards/hall/bios/Niklaus,Wirth/ . Copyright 0 2013 Computer History Museum