A computer language is a
formal language
In logic, mathematics, computer science, and linguistics, a formal language consists of words whose letters are taken from an alphabet and are well-formed according to a specific set of rules.
The alphabet of a formal language consists of symb ...
used to communicate with a
computer
A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...
. Types of computer languages include:
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Construction language – all forms of communication by which a human can
specify an executable problem solution to a computer
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Command language
A command language is a language for job control in computing. It is a domain-specific and interpreted language; common examples of a command language are shell or batch programming languages.
These languages can be used directly at the comman ...
– a language used to control the tasks of the computer itself, such as starting programs
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Configuration language – a language used to write
configuration files
In computing, configuration files (commonly known simply as config files) are files used to configure the parameters and initial settings for some computer programs. They are used for user applications, server processes and operating system set ...
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Programming language
A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language.
The description of a programming ...
– a formal language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer
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Query language
Query languages, data query languages or database query languages (DQL) are computer languages used to make queries in databases and information systems. A well known example is the Structured Query Language (SQL).
Types
Broadly, query language ...
– a language used to make
queries in
databases
In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases spa ...
and
information systems
An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, information storage, store, and information distribution, distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems a ...
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Transformation language
A transformation language is a computer language designed to transform some input text in a certain formal language into a modified output text that meets some specific goal.
Program transformation systems such as Stratego/XT, TXL, Tom, DMS, ...
– designed to transform some input text in a certain formal language into a modified output text that meets some specific goal
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Data exchange language
Data exchange is the process of taking data structured under a ''source'' Database schema, schema and transforming it into a ''target'' schema, so that the target data is an accurate representation of the source data.A. Doan, A. Halevy, and Z. Ives ...
– a language that is domain-independent and can be used for data from any kind of discipline; examples:
JSON
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation, pronounced ; also ) is an open standard file format and data interchange format that uses human-readable text to store and transmit data objects consisting of attribute–value pairs and arrays (or other ser ...
,
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable ...
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Markup language
Markup language refers to a text-encoding system consisting of a set of symbols inserted in a text document to control its structure, formatting, or the relationship between its parts. Markup is often used to control the display of the document ...
– a grammar for annotating a document in a way that is syntactically distinguishable from the text, such as
HTML
The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...
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Modeling language
A modeling language is any artificial language that can be used to express information or knowledge or systems in a structure that is defined by a consistent set of rules. The rules are used for interpretation of the meaning of components in the st ...
– an artificial language used to express information or knowledge, often for use in computer system design
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Architecture description language
Architecture description languages (ADLs) are used in several disciplines: system engineering, software engineering, and enterprise modelling and engineering.
The system engineering community uses an architecture description language as a langua ...
– used as a language (or a conceptual model) to describe and represent system architectures
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Hardware description language
In computer engineering, a hardware description language (HDL) is a specialized computer language used to describe the structure and behavior of electronic circuits, and most commonly, digital logic circuits.
A hardware description language en ...
– used to model
integrated circuits
An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...
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Page description language
In digital printing, a page description language (PDL) is a computer language that describes the appearance of a printed page in a higher level than an actual output bitmap (or generally raster graphics). An overlapping term is printer control la ...
– describes the appearance of a printed page in a higher level than an actual output
bitmap
In computing, a bitmap is a mapping from some domain (for example, a range of integers) to bits. It is also called a bit array
A bit array (also known as bitmask, bit map, bit set, bit string, or bit vector) is an array data structure that c ...
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Simulation language
A computer simulation language is used to describe the operation of a simulation on a computer.Fritzson, Peter, and Vadim Engelson.Modelica—A unified object-oriented language for system modeling and simulation" European Conference on Object-Orie ...
– a language used to describe
simulations
A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or process, whereas the s ...
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Specification language
A specification language is a formal language in computer science used during systems analysis, requirements analysis, and systems design to describe a system at a much higher level than a programming language, which is used to produce the execu ...
– a language used to describe what a system should do
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Style sheet language
A style sheet language, or style language, is a computer language that expresses the presentation of structured documents. One attractive feature of structured documents is that the content can be reused in many contexts and presented in various ...
– a computer language that expresses the presentation of structured documents, such as
CSS
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language such as HTML or XML (including XML dialects such as SVG, MathML or XHTML). CSS is a cornerstone techno ...
See also
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Data serialization
In computing, serialization (or serialisation) is the process of translating a data structure or object state into a format that can be stored (e.g. files in secondary storage devices, data buffers in primary storage devices) or transmitted (e ...
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Domain-specific language
A domain-specific language (DSL) is a computer language specialized to a particular application domain. This is in contrast to a general-purpose language (GPL), which is broadly applicable across domains. There are a wide variety of DSLs, ranging f ...
– a language specialized to a particular application domain
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General-purpose language
A general-purpose language is a computer language that is broadly applicable across application domains, and lacks specialized features for a particular domain. This is in contrast to a domain-specific language (DSL), which is specialized to a par ...
– a language that is broadly applicable across application domains, and lacks specialized features for a particular domain
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Lists of programming languages
There are thousands of programming language
A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of comput ...
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Natural language processing
Natural language processing (NLP) is an interdisciplinary subfield of linguistics, computer science, and artificial intelligence concerned with the interactions between computers and human language, in particular how to program computers to pro ...
– the use of computers to process text or speech in human language
References
External links
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{{Computer language