scripting language

A high-level programming, or command, language that is interpreted (translated on the fly) rather than compiled ahead of time. A scripting, or script, language may be a general-purpose programming language or it may be limited to specific functions used to augment the running of an application or system program. JavaScript is widely used on Web pages for general calculations as well as drop-down menus and other fancy menu and graphics actions. It enables the programmer to display a message such as "you forgot to give us your telephone number... please fill in and re-submit."

Communications scripts (widely used before the Web) and spreadsheet macros are examples of limited-purpose scripting languages. DOS batch files and Windows scripts are also examples. Microsoft's Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is a scripting language. VBA is a subset of Visual Basic that is used to automate Microsoft Office applications. Perl, Tcl and Python are very comprehensive programming languages that are often called scripting languages. See JavaScript, Perl, Tcl/Tk, Python, VBA, DOS batch file, Windows Script Host and COM automation.

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(language)

scripting language - (Or "glue language") A loose term for any language that is weakly typed or untyped and has little or no provision for complex data structures. A program in a scripting language (a "script") is often interpreted (but see Ousterhout's dichotomy). Scripts typically interact either with other programs (often as glue) or with a set of functions provided by the interpreter, as with the file system functions provided in a UNIX shell and with Tcl's GUI functions. Prototypical scripting languages are AppleScript, C Shell, MS-DOS batch files and Tcl.