ALTRAN

This article is about the FORTRAN extension. For Altran Technologies, a consulting firm, see Altran.
ALTRAN
Designed byW. Stanley Brown[1]
DeveloperBell Telephone Laboratories
First appeared1965
Influenced by
FORTRAN, PL/I[1]
Preview warning: Page using Template:Infobox programming language with unknown parameter "caption"
Preview warning: Page using Template:Infobox programming language with unknown parameter "turing-complete"

ALTRAN (ALgebraic TRANslator) is a programming language for the formal manipulation of rational functions of several variables with integer coefficients. It was developed at Bell Labs in 1960s.[1] ALTRAN is a FORTRAN version of ALPAK rational algebra package,[2] and “can be thought of as a variant of FORTRAN with the addition of an extra declaration, the ‘algebraic’ type declaration.”[3]

Although ALTRAN is written in ANSI FORTRAN, nevertheless there exist differences in FORTRAN implementations. ALTRAN handles machine dependencies through the use of a macro processor called M6.[1][4]

ALTRAN should not be confused with the ALGOL to FORTRAN Translator, called Altran, that "converts Extended Algol programs into Fortran IV."[5]

  1. ^ a b c d Hall, A.D., "The ALTRAN System for Rational Function Manipulation — A Survey". Communications of the ACM, 14(8):517–521 (August 1971).
  2. ^ Tapley, B.D.; Szebehely, V.G. (2012). Recent Advances in Dynamical Astronomy. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 364. ISBN 978-94-010-2611-6. Retrieved Sep 3, 2019.
  3. ^ Geddes, Keith O.; Czapor, Stephen R.; Labahn, George (2007). Algorithms for Computer Algebra. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 4. ISBN 0-7923-9259-0. Retrieved Sep 3, 2019.
  4. ^ Brown, P.J., ed. (1977). Software Portability. Cambridge University Press. p. 21. ISBN 0-521-29725-7. Retrieved Sep 3, 2019.
  5. ^ Wilner, Wayne T. "ALGOL TO FORTRAN TRANSLATOR" (PDF). slac.stanford.edu. Retrieved Sep 3, 2019.