1995-04-06 08:52:44 +00:00
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Icon is a high-level programming language with extensive
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facilities for processing strings and structures. Icon has
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several novel features, including expressions that may produce
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sequences of results, goal-directed evaluation that automatically
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searches for a successful result, and string scanning that allows
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operations on strings to be formulated at a high conceptual
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level.
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Icon emphasizes high-level string processing and a design phi-
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losophy that allows ease of programming and short, concise pro-
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grams. Storage allocation and garbage collection are automatic in
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Icon, and there are few restrictions on the sizes of objects.
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Strings, lists, and other structures are created during program
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execution and their size does not need to be known when a program
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is written. Values are converted to expected types automati-
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cally; for example, numeral strings read in as input can be used
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in numerical computations without explicit conversion. Icon has
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an expression-based syntax with reserved words; in appearance,
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Icon programs resemble those of Pascal and C.
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1995-07-29 09:55:13 +00:00
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The language is described in R. E. Griswold and M. T. Griswold, The
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Icon Programming Language, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs,
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NJ, second edition, 1990.
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