Programming Language for Business or PL/B is a business-oriented programming language originally called DATABUS and designed by Datapoint in 1972 as an alternative to COBOL because Datapoint's 8-bit computers could not fit COBOL into their limited memory, and because COBOL did not at the time have facilities to deal with Datapoint's built-in keyboard and screen.

A version of DATABUS became an ANSI standard, and the name PL/B came about when Datapoint chose not to release its trademark on the DATABUS name.

Functionality

Much like Java and .NET, PL/B programs are compiled into an intermediate byte-code, which is then interpreted by a runtime library. Because of this, many PL/B programs can run on MS-DOS, Unix, Linux, and Windows. PL/B (Databus) is actively used all over the world, and has several forums on the Internet dedicated to supporting software developers.[citation needed]

PL/B has a database capability built-in with ISAM and Associative Hashed Indexes, as well as functionality for working with ODBC, SQL, Oracle, sequential, random access, XML and JSON files.

PL/B also has the ability to access external routines through COM objects, DLLs and .NET assemblies. Full access to the .NET framework is built into many versions.[citation needed]

Several implementations of the language are capable of running as an Application Server like Citrix, and connecting to remote databases through a data manager.[citation needed]

Source code example

External links