Work Flow Language, or WFL ("wiffle") is the process control language for the Burroughs large systems, including the Unisys ClearPath/MCP series, and their operating system Master Control Program. Developed soon after the B5000 in 1961, WFL is the ClearPath equivalent of the Job Control Language (JCL) on IBM mainframes and the shell scripts of Unix-like operating systems. Unlike JCL, WFL is a high-level structured language complete with subroutines (procedures and functions) with arguments and high-level program control flow instructions. WFL programs are compiled to binary executables like any other MCP subject.
WFL is used for high-level system operations, such as running tasks, moving and copying files, providing high-level recoverability. Thus it is not a general purpose language in that you would not use it to do general computations. You can open and close files to check their attributes for example; however, you cannot read or change their contents in WFL – that you do in a general purpose language, and invoke it as a task from WFL.
WFL has a high-level ALGOL-like readable syntax. It has none of the low-level assembler-like commands of JCL like //SYSIN DD, etc. in order to connect hardware devices and open files for programs. All WFL constructs deal with the high-level abstractions of tasks and files. Parameters are also real HLL parameters, not the $1, $2... style position parameters of shell scripts.
WFL also has an instruction block command which is used to give operators instructions needed to run the current job. These instructions are displayed using the 'IB' operator command.
Famous quotes containing the words work, flow and/or language:
“If the heart beguiles itself in its choice [of a wife], and imagination will give excellencies which are not the portion of flesh and blood:Mwhen the dream is over, and we awake in the morning, it matters little whether ‘tis Rachael or Leah,—be the object what it will, as it must be on the earthly side ... of perfection,—it will fall short of the work of fancy, whose existence is in the clouds.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“The method of painting is the natural growth out of a need. I want to express my feelings rather than illustrate them. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.... I can control the flow of paint: there is no accident, just as there is no beginning and no end.”
—Jackson Pollock (1912–1956)
“But as some silly young men returning from France affect a broken English, to be thought perfect in the French language; so his Lordship, I think, to seem a perfect understander of the unintelligible language of the Schoolmen, pretends an ignorance of his mother-tongue. He talks here of command and counsel as if he were no Englishman, nor knew any difference between their significations.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)