expertGenius
together with the Designer, adds a programming superset that completes the Genius
Suite. With the exception of the runtime system, all of the Genius
Suite distributed components are written in expertGenius. All
applications are generated as expertGenius source code which is then
automatically compiled.
Although it may be used as a general purpose programming language, expertGenius has a number of unusual features which make it especially suited to commercial data processing:
Architecture based on decision tables makes it easy to express complex logic in legible tabular form, allowing parallel evaluation of multiple logic threads
Single pass compilation directly into executable machine code (with no link phase required) allows immediate execution of generated programs
All commercial data types are supported, including (scaled) 8-byte integers, packed decimal, zoned, overpunched, all Digital and IEEE floating types etc.; type conversion is performed automatically as required
Extensive date handling primitives simplify manipulation and interconversion of date fields in most common formats
Support is provided for a wide range of file types, with full program control of record locking, discontiguous segmented keys, index selection etc.
A "Generalised file" mechanism allows the extension of the file system via user-supplied expertGenius code to access other data structures (databases etc) via standard file system calls
A simple consistent mechanism for defining GUI panels and menus which allows the same compiled program to run transparently on a Windows platform, on Motif systems and in emulation on character cell terminals.
Picture driven display and print facilities allow complex layouts to be coded easily and accurately
Powerful screen handling primitives facilitate use of terminal video attributes, colour, line and box drawing etc.
Inbuilt fixed-logic tabulator mechanism provides multi-level totalling with breaks on change of selected field values and automatic roll of subtotals
Data definitions can be included from the Data Dictionary
A powerful text macro facility allows repetitive code sequences to be generated accurately and legibly
Comprehensive runtime environment includes full interactive debugger, with breakpoints, trace, single step, examine/deposit etc.
expertGenius is able to compile almost all code source written in the following programming languages: