high-level language


Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Medical, Legal, Financial, Wikipedia.
Related to high-level language: assembly language, machine language

high-level language

a computer programming language that resembles natural language or mathematical notation and is designed to reflect the requirements of a problem; examples include Ada, BASIC, C, COBOL, FORTRAN, Pascal

high-level language

[′hī ‚lev·əl ′laŋ·gwij]
(computer science)
A computer language whose instructions or statements each correspond to several machine language instructions, designed to make coding easier. Also known as higher-level language; higher-order language.

high-level language

(HLL) A programming language which provides some level of abstraction above assembly language. These normally use statements consisting of English-like keywords such as "FOR", "PRINT" or "GOTO", where each statement corresponds to several machine language instructions. It is much easier to program in a high-level language than in assembly language though the efficiency of execution depends on how good the compiler or interpreter is at optimising the program.

Rarely, the variants "VHLL" and "MLL" are found.

See also languages of choice, generation.

high-level language

A machine-independent programming language, such as C, C++, Java, Perl and COBOL. It lets the programmer concentrate on the logic of the problem to be solved rather than the intricacies of the machine architecture such as is required with low-level assembly languages.

There are dramatic differences between high-level languages. Look up the programming language terms such as BASIC, C and Java and review the sample code. What is considered high level also depends on the era. There were assembly languages 50 years ago that were easier to use than many high-level languages today. Contrast with assembly language and machine language. See programming language, C, BASIC and Java.
Mentioned in ?
References in periodicals archive ?
This high-level language is based on the Problem Space Computational Model (PSCM) and is represented using the Extensible Markup Language (XML).
Applying software engineering to agent development
The industry came up with high-level languages to save on programmer costs.
The story behind the Y2K problem
EPOC was designed to be ROM-based and portable across CPUs by simple rebuilds in high-level language. For mobile devices there is no standard size for screen size, keyboard, buttons or pointer equipment, EPOC is designed to separate the GUI from the unde rlying engine, allowing manufacturers to modify the GUI to suit their requirements.
Microsoft still hanging on the telephone
This results in compelling reports that (1) show clearly that statements and branches have been exercised in the assembler code and (2) cross-correlate the results between the high-level language and assembler.
LDRA Provides Only Commercially Available Object Code Verification for Avionics Industry's Upgrade to Newest PowerPC Chips
The event processing papers apply complex event processing to financial services, describe a high-level language approach for expressing queries to events, and analyze two algorithms for distributed stream processing systems.
Services computing; proceedings
Coverage of complex MC/DC scenarios which are difficult to analyze via high-level language coverage
LDRA Tool Suite Extends Certification Support for x86 Assembly Code
This second volume in the series describes methods for choosing high-level language (HLL) statements to create the most efficient machine code when using a modern optimizing compiler.
Write Great Code, vol.2: Thinking Low-level, Writing High-level
In a more specific area, researchers at The MathWorks, Natick, Mass., and Cornell Theory Center (CTC), Ithaca, N.Y., have recently parallelized the popular graphics-based high-level language and problem-solving program, MATLAB, by using a message passing interface (MPI).
Is a parallel computer in your future?
Python's extensibility has been used to efficiently handle the data formats and I/O devices needed for audio, image and video processing without losing the advantages of using a very high-level language (e.g., powerful string-handling operations, shorter and clearer code, and a much faster edit-run cycle).
CMIFed - an AHM-based authoring environment
In addition to extended high-level language support for the PPC processor range, the LDRA tool suite for PPC Assemblers may be used to demonstrate source-to-object-code traceability.
LDRA Tool Suite High- and Object-Level Support Extended for Full Range of PowerPCs
Programming courses are even better when they teach a suitable high-level language. Our introductory courses use Lisp.
Should we teach students to program?
Many high-level language implementations use the analogue of the following set of representations, the least-absolute residue (LAR) system:
Technical correspondence

Encyclopedia browser ?
Full browser ?