Glue language

A glue language is a programming language (usually a scripting language) used for connecting software components together.

Examples of glue languages:

• Unix Shell scripts (ksh, csh, bash, sh and others)
• Windows NT type Shell scripts (CMD.exe)
• Windows PowerShell
• MS-DOS and Windows 95 type Batch files (Command.com); usefulness as glue language enhanced by QBasic and DOSKey
• OS/2 batch files and shell scripts
• Kixtart
• 4NT
• 4DOS
• 4OS/2
• Take Command
• Norton Utilities NDOS (a 4DOS variant)
• DCL
• JCL
• m4
• VBScript
• JScript and JavaScript
• AppleScript
• Python
• Ruby
• Lua
• Tcl
• Perl
• PHP
• Pure
• REXX
• XSLT
• Operating system desktop macro languages such as the Windows 3.11 Macro Recorder and various tools for Windows CE versions and implementations.

Extended macro languages which are exposed to operating system components and those of other programmes including Visual Basic for Applications, WordBasic, LotusScript, CorelScript, PerfectScript, Hummingbird Basic and QuickScript, SaxBasic and WinWrap Basic as well as other tools like awk can also be considered glue languages, as can any language implemented by an ActiveX WSH engine (VBScript, JScript and VBA by default in Windows and third-party engines including implementations of Rexx, Perl, Tcl, Python, XSLT, Ruby, Delphi, &c) A majority of applications can access and use operating system components via the object models or its own functions.

Other devices like programmable calculators may also have glue languages; the operating systems of PDAs such as Windows CE may have available native or third-party macro tools which glue applications together in addition to implementations of common glue languages -- including Windows NT, MS-DOS and some Unix shells, Rexx, PHP, and Perl. Depending upon the OS version, WSH and the default script engines (VBScript and JScript) are available.

Programmable calculators can be programmed in glue languages in three ways: for example the TI-92 by factory default can be programmed by a Command Script language -- the inclusion of the scripting and glue language Lua in the TI-NSpire series of calculators could be seen as the successor to and incrementation upon this. The primary on-board high-level programming languages of most graphing calculators (most often Basic variants, also available have been derivatives of Lisp, and more uncommonly of C) in many cases can glue together functions of the calculators such as graphs, lists, matrices, and the like. Third-party implementations of more comprehensive versions of Basic which may or may not come closer to variants listed as glue languages in this article are available and attempts to implement Perl, Rexx, or the various operating system shells on the TI and HP graphing calculators are also mentioned. PC-based C cross-compilers for some of the TI and HP machines used in conjunction with tools which convert betwixt C and Perl, Rexx, awk, as well as shell scripts to Perl, VBScript to and from Perl make it possible to write a programme in a glue language for eventual implementation (as a compiled programme) on the calculator.

See also

• Category:Scripting languages