Pascal

views updated May 18 2018

Pascal A programming language in common though decreasing use. Pascal was designed as a tool to assist the teaching of programming as a systematic discipline. To that end it incorporates the control structures of structured programming – sequence, selection, and repetition – and data structures – arrays, records, files, sets, and user-defined types. It is an austere language, with a minimum of facilities, but what is provided is so well suited to its task that the language is in practice more powerful than its more elaborate competitors.

Pascal was relatively easy to implement on a variety of machines since the Pascal compiler was written in Pascal. Used first as an educational tool, Pascal became a more-or-less standard language for the teaching of computer science. It spread into microcomputing in the form of the UCSD p-System: this is now little used, the dominant version in the micro world now being Turbo Pascal. In 1982 ISO Standard Pascal was defined, but modern compilers, particularly Turbo Pascal, implement an extended and nonstandard version of the language.

pascal

views updated May 08 2018

pascal
1. (Pa) The derived SI unit of pressure, equal to 1 N/m2.

2. A high-level computer programming language. Both are named after the French mathematician Blaise Pascal (1623–62).

pascal

views updated Jun 11 2018

pascal
1. (Pa) The derived SI unit of pressure, equal to 1 N/m2.

2. A high-level computer programming language. Both are named after the French mathematician Blaise Pascal (1623–62).

pascal

views updated May 23 2018

pas·cal / päˈskäl/ • n. the SI unit of pressure, equal to one newton per square meter (approx. 0.000145 pounds per square inch, or 9.9 × 10−6 atmospheres).

PASCAL

views updated May 29 2018

PASCAL (or Pascal) (ˈpæsˌkæl) Computing, indicating a programming language (named after Blaise Pascal (1623–62), French philosopher, mathematician, and physicist)

pascal

views updated May 18 2018

pascal The SI unit of pressure equal to one newton per square metre.

pascal

views updated May 23 2018

pascal (pas-kăl) n. the SI unit of pressure, equal to 1 newton per square metre. Symbol: Pa.

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