Features
As a computer language, IDL:
- is dynamically typed.
- has a single namespace.
- was originally single threaded but now has many multi-threaded functions and procedures.
- has all function arguments passed by reference ("IN-OUT"); but see "problems", below.
- has named parameters called keywords which are passed by reference.
- provides named parameter inheritance in nested routine calls, by reference or value.
- does not require variables to be predeclared.
- provides COMMON block declarations and system variables to share global values among routines.
- provides a basic form of object-oriented programming, somewhat similar to Smalltalk, along with operator overloading.
- implements a persistent, global heap of pointer and object variables, using reference counting for garbage collection.
- compiles to an interpreted, stack-based intermediate p-code (à la Java Virtual Machine).
- provides a simple and efficient index slice syntax to extract data from large arrays.
- provides various integer sizes, as well as single and double precision floating point real and complex numbers.
- provides composite data types such as character strings, homogeneous-type arrays, lists, hash tables, and simple (non-hierarchical) record structures of mixed data types.
Read more about this topic: IDL (programming Language)
Famous quotes containing the word features:
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Art is the child of Nature; yes,
Her darling child, in whom we trace
The features of the mother’s face,
Her aspect and her attitude.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)
“The features of our face are hardly more than gestures which force of habit made permanent. Nature, like the destruction of Pompeii, like the metamorphosis of a nymph into a tree, has arrested us in an accustomed movement.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)