scripting language

scripting language

A high-level programming language that is interpreted (translated on the fly) rather than compiled ahead of time. A scripting 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. For example, JavaScript is widely used on Web pages for calculations as well as for displaying messages, drop-down menus and other user interface elements. Perl, Tcl and Python are very comprehensive programming languages that are often called scripting languages.

Application Scripts
Microsoft's Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is another example. A subset of Visual Basic, VBA is used to automate Microsoft Office applications. Many applications have their own limited-purpose scripting languages; for example, spreadsheets have macro languages, and communications programs (widely used for dial-up before the Web) and FTP programs generally support scripts for automating functions.

Command Line Scripts
Commands executed from the Windows, DOS or Unix/Linux command line are limited-purpose scripting languages, more often referred to as "command languages" (see command processor and shell script). See JavaScript, Perl, Tcl/Tk, Python, VBA, DOS batch file and Windows Script Host.

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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.