REXX

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REXX (REstructured eXtended eXecutor) is an interpreted programming language which was developed at IBM. It is a structured high-level programming language which was designed to be both easy to learn and easy to read. Both commercial and open source interpreters for REXX are available on a wide range of computing platforms, and compilers are available for IBM mainframes.

Contents

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Features

REXX has the following characteristics and features:

REXX has just twenty-three, largely self-evident, instructions (e.g., call, parse, and select) with minimal punctuation and formatting requirements. It is essentially an almost free-form language with only one data-type, the character string; this philosophy means that all data are visible (symbolic) and debugging and tracing are simplified.

REXX syntax looks similar to PL/I, but has fewer notations; this makes it harder to parse (by program) but easier to use.

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History

REXX was designed and first implemented as an ‘own-time’ project between 20 March 1979 and mid-1982 by Mike Cowlishaw of IBM, originally as a scripting programming language to replace the languages EXEC and EXEC 2. It was designed to be a macro or scripting language for any system. As such, REXX is considered a precursor to Tcl and Python.

It was first described in public at the SHARE 56 conference in Houston, Texas, in 1981, where customer reaction, championed by Ted Johnston of SLAC, led to it being shipped as an IBM product in 1982.

Over the years IBM included REXX in almost all of its operating systems (VM/CMS, VM/GCS, MVS TSO/E, AS/400, OS/2, VSE/ESA, AIX, CICS/ESA, and PC-DOS), and has made versions available for Novell Netware, Windows, Java, and Linux.

The first non-IBM version was written for PC-DOS by Charles Daney in 1984/5. Other versions have also been developed for Atari, Amiga, Unix (many variants), Solaris, DEC, Windows, Windows CE, PocketPC, MS-DOS, Palm OS, QNX, OS/2, Linux, BeOS, EPOC32, AtheOS, OpenVMS, OpenEdition, Macintosh, and Mac OS X.

The Amiga version of Rexx, called ARexx was included with AmigaOS 2 onwards and was popular for scripting as well as application control. Many Amiga applications have "ARexx ports" built into them which allows control of the application via a user defined script.

Several freeware versions of Rexx are available. In 1992, the two most widely-used open-source ports appeared: Ian Collier's REXX/imc for Unix and Anders Christensen's Regina (later adopted by Mark Hessling) for Windows and Linux. BREXX is well-known for WinCE and PocketPC platforms.

In 1996 ANSI published a standard for REXX: ANSI X3.274–1996 “Information Technology – Programming Language REXX”. More than two dozen books on REXX have been published since 1985.

Since the mid-1990s, two newer variants of REXX have appeared:

  • NetRexx – which compiles to Java byte-code via Java source code; this has no reserved keywords at all, and uses the Java object model, and is therefore not upwards-compatible with ‘classic’ REXX.
  • Object Rexx – which is an object-oriented upwards-compatible version of REXX.

In 1990, Cathy Dager of SLAC organized the first independent REXX symposium, which led to the forming of the REXX Language Association. Symposiums are held annually.

Rexx marked its 25th anniversary on 20 March 2004, which was celebrated at the REXX Language Association’s 15th International REXX Symposium in Böblingen, Germany, in May 2004.

On October 12, 2004, IBM announced their plan to release their Object Rexx implementation under the Common Public License.

On February 22, 2005, the first public release of ooRexx (Open Object Rexx) was announced.

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Syntax

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Looping

The DO control structure always begins with a DO and ends with an END.

DO UNTIL: 

   do until [condition]
   [instructions]
   end


DO WHILE: 

   do while [condition is true]
   [instructions]
   end


Stepping through a variable: 

   do i = x to y by z
   [instructions]
   end


Looping forever until exiting with LEAVE: 

   do forever
     if [condition] then leave
   end

Looping a fixed number of times 

   do i = x to y by z for a
   [instructions]
   end

Looping a specified number of times 

   do  x
   [instructions]
   end

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Conditionals

Testing conditions with IF 

   if [condition] then
     do
     [instructions]
     end
   else
     do
     [instructions]
     end

For single instructions, DO and END can also be omitted: 

   if [condition] then
     [instruction]
   else
     [instruction]

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Testing for multiple conditions

SELECT is REXX’s CASE structure 

   select
     when [condition] then
         [instruction]
     when [condition] then
       do
         [instructions]
       end
     otherwise
       [instructions] or NOP
   end

NOP indicates no instruction is to be executed.

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PARSE

The PARSE instruction is particularly powerful; it combines some useful string-handling functions. Its syntax is: 

   parse [upper] origin template

where origin specifies the source:

  • arg (command line variable)
  • linein (keyboard)
  • pull (REXX data queue)
  • source (OS/2 info on how program was executed)
  • value (an expression) with
(the keyword with is required to indicate where the expression ends)
  • var (a variable)
  • version (version/release number)

and template can be:

  • list of variables
  • column number delimiters
  • literal delimiters

upper is optional; it you specify it, data will be converted to upper case.

Examples:

Using a list of variables as template 

   myVar = "John Smith"
   parse var MyVar firstName lastName
   say "First name is:" firstName
   say "Last name is:"  lastName

displays the following 

   First name is: John
   Last name is: Smith

Using a delimiter as template: 

   myVar = "Smith, John"
   parse var MyVar LastName "," FirstName
   say "First name is:" firstName
   say "Last name is:"  lastName

also displays the following 

   First name is: John
   Last name is: Smith

Using column number delimiters: 

   myVar = "(202) 123-1234"
   parse var MyVar 2 AreaCode 5  7 SubNumber
   say "Area code is:" AreaCode
   say "Subscriber number is:" SubNumber

displays the following 

   Area code is: 202
   Subscriber number is: 123-1234

A template can use a combination of variables, literal delimiters, and column number delimiters.

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Flexible Variables

Variables in REXX are typeless, and initially are evaluated as their names, in upper case. Thus a variable's type can vary with its use in the program: 

 do
   say hello             =>  HELLO 
   hello = 25
   say hello             =>  25
   hello = "say 5 + 3"
   say hello             =>  say 5 + 3
   interpret hello       =>  8
   drop hello
   say hello             =>  HELLO
 end

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Array support

REXX does not have explicit variable declarations, and likewise no arrays. However, a stem structure, similar to an array can be produced easily: 

 do i = 1 to 10
   stem.i = 10 - i
 end

Afterwards the following variables with the following values exist: stem.1 = 9, stem.2 = 8, stem.3 = 7...

The drop stem. instruction unsets all ten variables of the form stem.i.

Unlike arrays, the index for a stem variable is not required to have an integer value. For example, the following code is valid: 

i = 'Monday'
stem.i = 2

It is possible to have multiple substitutions within a stem variable name. Thus, you could have the following: 

sub1 = 'July'
sub2 = 15
sub3 = 2005
Day.sub1.sub2.sub3 = 'Friday'

This has the effect of providing a multi-dimensional array

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SIGNAL: A negative example

The REXX SIGNAL instruction is intended for abnormal changes in the flow of control (see the next section), however, it can be misused and treated like the GOTO in other languages (although it is not strictly equivalent, because it terminates loops and other constructs). This can produce difficult to read code: 

 /* A Rexx Program */
   signal define;
 use:
   say a
 signal end;
 define: 
   a = "hello world"
   signal use;
 end:
   exit

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Error and exception treatment in REXX

It is possible in REXX to intercept and deal with errors and other exceptions, using the SIGNAL instruction. There are seven system conditions: ERROR, FAILURE, HALT, NOVALUE, NOTREADY, LOSTDIGITS and SYNTAX. Handling of each can be switched on and off in the source code as desired.

This example will run until stopped by the user: 

 signal on halt;
 do a = 1
   say a
   do 100000 /* a delay */
   end
 end
 halt:
 say "The program was stopped by the user" 
 exit

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Conditions

ERROR Positive RC from a system command
FAILURE Negative RC from a system command
HALT Abnormal termination
NOVALUE An unset variable was referenced
NOTREADY Input or output error
LOSTDIGITS Significant digits are lost
SYNTAX Invalid program syntax, or some error condition not covered above

When a condition is handled by SIGNAL ON, the SIGL and RC system variables can be analyzed to understand the situation. RC contains the REXX error code and SIGL contains the line number where the error arose.

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Under OS/2

REXX is included in the base operating system of OS/2, and is also used as the macro language in many applications. Under OS/2, a REXX program begins with matched comment delimiters, /* */, to indicate to the operating system that it is a REXX program: 

   /* sample.cmd */
   say "Hello World"

Instructions between quotes are passed to the OS: 

   /* sample.cmd */
   'dir /p /w'

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Spelling

In plain text, Cowlishaw seems to prefer Rexx, whereas IBM documents and the majority of the web uses REXX. The ANSI standard uses the form preferred by the standardization committee, which has small capitals for the final three letters: REXX.

Originally just "Rex" because the author liked how it sounded, the extra "x" was added to avoid collisions with other products' names.

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Books

  • The Rexx Language: A Practical Approach to Programming ( Prentice Hall, 1990), by Michael Cowlishaw, ISBN 0137806515
  • Programming in REXX (McGraw-Hill, 1990), by Charles Daney, ISBN 0070153051
  • REXX with OS/2, TSO, & CMS Features (M V S Training, 1999), by Gabriel Gargiulo, ISBN 189255903X
  • Down to Earth Rexx (Perfect Niche Software, 2000), by William Schindler, ISBN 0967759005
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External links

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Interpreters

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Classic REXX

  • Regina: open-source (LGPL) interpreter for Linux, BSD, Windows, etc.
  • REXX/imc: open-source (nonstandard license) interpreter for Unix and Linux systems.
  • BREXX: open-source (GPL) interpreter for DOS, Linux, Windows CE, etc.
  • Reginald: free interpreter for Windows.
  • roo!: free (Kilowatt Software) interpreter for Windows with object-oriented extensions.
  • r4: free (Kilowatt Software) interpreter for Windows.
  • REXX for Palm OS: shareware (Jaxo Inc.) interpreter for Palm OS.
  • Personal REXX: commercial (Quercus Systems) interpreter for Windows, OS/2 and DOS.
  • S/REXX: commercial (Benaroya) interpreter for UNIX and Windows.
  • uni-REXX: commercial (The Workstation Group Ltd.) interpreter for UNIX.
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Object REXX

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NetREXX

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Newsgroups

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Tutorials

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