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A contextual analysis of Pascal programs
Author(s) -
Cook Robert P.,
Lee Insup
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
software: practice and experience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.437
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1097-024X
pISSN - 0038-0644
DOI - 10.1002/spe.4380120209
Subject(s) - pascal (unit) , operand , fortran , programming language , computer science , construct (python library) , mathematics education , linguistics , psychology , philosophy , operating system
More than 120,000 lines of Pascal programs, written by graduate students and faculty members, have been statically analysed to provide a better understanding of how the language is ‘really’ used. The analysis was done within twelve distinct contexts to discover differences in usage patterns among the various contexts. For example, it was found that 47 per cent of the operands in arguments lists were constants. The results are displayed as tables of frequency counts which show how often each construct is used within a context. Also, we have compared our findings to the results from studies of other languages, such as FORTRAN, SAL and XPL.