Clipper is an

xBase xBase is the generic term for all programming languages that derive from the original dBASE ( Ashton-Tate) programming language and database formats. These are sometimes informally known as dBASE "clones". While there was a non-commercial predec ...

compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs that ...

that implements a variant of the ''xBase'' computer

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 ...

. It is used to create or extend software programs that originally operated primarily under

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

. Although it is a powerful general-purpose programming language, it was primarily used to create

database 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 sp ...

/business programs. One major

dBase dBase (also stylized dBASE) was one of the first database management systems for microcomputers and the most successful in its day. The dBase system includes the core database engine, a query system, a forms engine, and a programming language ...

feature not implemented in Clipper is the dot-prompt (. prompt) interactive command set, which was an important part of the original dBase implementation. Clipper, from Nantucket Corp and later

Computer Associates CA Technologies, formerly known as CA, Inc. and Computer Associates International, Inc., is an American multinational corporation headquartered in New York City. It is primarily known for its business-to-business (B2B) software with a product po ...

, started out as a native code compiler for dBase III databases, and later evolved.

History

Clipper was created by Nantucket Corporation, a company that was started in 1984 by Barry ReBell (management) and Brian Russell (technical); Larry Heimendinger was Nantucket's president. In 1992, the company was sold to

for 190 million dollars and the product was renamed to CA-Clipper. Clipper was created as a replacement

for

Ashton Tate Ashton may refer to: Names *Ashton (given name) * Ashton (surname) Places Australia * Ashton, Elizabeth Bay, a heritage-listed house in Sydney, New South Wales * Ashton, South Australia Canada * Ashton, Ontario New Zealand * Ashton, New Zeala ...

's ''

dBASE dBase (also stylized dBASE) was one of the first database management systems for microcomputers and the most successful in its day. The dBase system includes the core database engine, a query system, a forms engine, and a programming language ...

III'', a very popular

database language 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 span ...

at the time. The advantage of Clipper over dBASE was that it could be

compiled In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs that ...

and

executed Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

under

as a standalone application. In the years between 1985 and 1992, millions of Clipper applications were built, typically for small businesses dealing with databases concerning many aspects of client management and

inventory management Field inventory management commonly known as inventory management is the function of understanding the stock mix of a company and the different demands on that stock. The demands are influenced by both external and internal factors and are balan ...

. For many smaller businesses, having a Clipper application designed to their specific needs was their first experience with software development. Also a lot of applications for

banking A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because ...

and

insurance companies Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge ...

were developed, here especially in those cases where the application was considered too small to be developed and run on traditional

mainframe A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise ...

s. In these environments Clipper also served as a front end for existing mainframe applications. As the product matured, it remained a

DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicatio ...

tool for many years, but added elements of the

C programming language ''The C Programming Language'' (sometimes termed ''K&R'', after its authors' initials) is a computer programming book written by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie, the latter of whom originally designed and implemented the language, as well as ...

and

Pascal programming language Pascal is an Imperative programming, imperative and Procedural programming, procedural programming language, designed by Niklaus Wirth as a small, efficient language intended to encourage good programming practices using structured programming an ...

, as well as OOP, and the code-block data-type (hybridizing the concepts of dBase macros, or

string String or strings may refer to: *String (structure), a long flexible structure made from threads twisted together, which is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Strings'' (1991 film), a Canadian anim ...

-evaluation, and

function pointer A function pointer, also called a subroutine pointer or procedure pointer, is a pointer that points to a function. As opposed to referencing a data value, a function pointer points to executable code within memory. Dereferencing the function poin ...

s), to become far more powerful than the original. Nantucket's Aspen project later matured into the

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

native-code CA-

Visual Objects Visual Objects is an object-oriented computer programming language that is used to create computer programs that operate primarily under Windows. Although it can be used as a general-purpose programming tool, it is almost exclusively used to create ...

compiler.

Market penetration

Nantucket sold well in Western markets. Also, in November 1991, the ''New York Times'' reported the company's success in "painstakingly convincing Soviet software developers that buying is preferable to pirating". According to the article, Clipper had sold 2,000 copies in the Soviet Union (compared to 250,000 worldwide).

Decline

In the early 1990s, under new ownership, Clipper failed to transition from

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

. As a result, almost no new commercial applications were written in Clipper after 1995. By then, the "classically trained programmer" commonly used

strong typing In computer programming, one of the many ways that programming languages are colloquially classified is whether the language's type system makes it strongly typed or weakly typed (loosely typed). However, there is no precise technical definition o ...

, in contrast to the original dBASE language. An evolution of Clipper, named VO, added strong typing but made it optional, in order to remain compatible with existing code. Four of the more important languages that took over from Clipper were

Visual Basic Visual Basic is a name for a family of programming languages from Microsoft. It may refer to: * Visual Basic .NET (now simply referred to as "Visual Basic"), the current version of Visual Basic launched in 2002 which runs on .NET * Visual Basic (cl ...

, Microsoft Access,

Delphi Delphi (; ), in legend previously called Pytho (Πυθώ), in ancient times was a sacred precinct that served as the seat of Pythia, the major oracle who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient classical world. The oracle ...

, and

Powerbuilder PowerBuilder is an integrated development environment owned by SAP since the acquisition of Sybase in 2010. On July 5, 2016, SAP and Appeon entered into an agreement whereby Appeon, an independent company, would be responsible for developing, sel ...

. They all provided strong typing.

Revival by third-parties

The Clipper language is being actively implemented and extended by multiple organizations/vendors, like '' XBase++'' from Alaska Software and ''FlagShip'', as well as

free Free may refer to: Concept * Freedom, having the ability to do something, without having to obey anyone/anything * Freethought, a position that beliefs should be formed only on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism * Emancipate, to procur ...

(

GPL The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general us ...

-licensed) projects like ''

Harbour A harbor (American English), harbour (British English; see spelling differences), or haven is a sheltered body of water where ships, boats, and barges can be docked. The term ''harbor'' is often used interchangeably with ''port'', which is a ...

'' and ''

xHarbour xHarbour is a free multi-platform extended Clipper compiler, offering multiple graphic terminals (GTs), including console drivers, GUIs, and hybrid console/GUIs. xHarbour is backward-compatible with Clipper and supports many language syntax ext ...

''. Many of the current implementations are portable (

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

( 32- and

64-bit In computer architecture, 64-bit Integer (computer science), integers, memory addresses, or other Data (computing), data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit central processing unit, CPUs and arithmetic logic unit, ALUs are those ...

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...

(32- and 64-bit), and

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

), supporting many language extensions, and have greatly extended runtime libraries, as well as various Replaceable Database Drivers (RDD) supporting many popular database formats, like DBF, DBTNTX, DBFCDX (

FoxPro FoxPro was a text-based procedurally oriented programming language and database management system (DBMS), and it was also an object-oriented programming language, originally published by Fox Software and later by Microsoft, for MS-DOS, Windows ...

, Apollo, Comix, and Advantage Database Server), MachSix (SIx Driver and Apollo), SQL, and more. These newer implementations all strive for full compatibility with the standard

syntax, while also offering OOP approaches and target-based syntax such as SQLExecute().

Usenet

The Clipper

Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it was ...

newsgroup A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are discussion groups and are not devoted to publishing news. Newsgroups are technically distinct ...

s ar
comp.lang.clipper
an
comp.lang.clipper.visual-objects
Clipper Helloworld

Programming in Clipper

A simple

hello world ''Hello'' is a salutation or greeting in the English language. It is first attested in writing from 1826. Early uses ''Hello'', with that spelling, was used in publications in the U.S. as early as the 18 October 1826 edition of the ''Norwich C ...

- application: ? "Hello World!" A simple data base input mask: USE Customer SHARED NEW clear @ 1, 0 SAY "CustNum" GET Customer->CustNum PICT "999999" VALID Customer->CustNum > 0 @ 3, 0 SAY "Contact" GET Customer->Contact VALID !empty(Customer->Contact) @ 4, 0 SAY "Address" GET Customer->Address READ

Version history

The various versions of Clipper were From Nantucket Corporation; the "seasonal versions", billed as "

compilers In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs that ...

" * Nantucket Clipper Winter'84 - released May 25, 1985 * Nantucket Clipper Summer'85 - released 1985 * Nantucket Clipper Winter'85 - released January 29, 1986 * Nantucket Clipper Autumn'86 - released October 31, 1986 * Nantucket Clipper Summer'87 - released December 21, 1987 From Nantucket Corporation; Clipper 5 * Nantucket Clipper 5.00 - released 1990 * Nantucket Clipper 5.01 - released April 15, 1991 * Nantucket Clipper 5.01 Rev.129 - released March 31, 1992 and from

; CA-Clipper 5 * CA Clipper 5.01a - * CA Clipper 5.20 - released February 15, 1993 * CA-Clipper 5.2a - released March 15, 1993 * CA Clipper 5.2b - released June 25, 1993 * CA-Clipper 5.2c - released August 6, 1993 * CA Clipper 5.2d - released March 25, 1994 * CA-Clipper 5.2e - released February 7, 1995 * CA Clipper 5.30 - released June 26, 1995 * CA Clipper 5.3a - released May 20, 1996 * CA Clipper 5.3b - released May 20, 1997

Clipper tools

In addition to the standard clipper library, a library named "Clipper Tools" was developed by CA after purchasing Nantucket. Three versions of this library were released, alongside Clipper versions. This library became a de facto standard amongst Clipper clones, such as xHarbour. It was also cloned by several of Clipper's clones.

References

External links

Free Open Source Graphic,GUI & Form Designer for CA-Clippermini Clipper FAQ
article
The Oasis
is the largest file archive for CA-Clipper and xBase on the web
Harbour Project
A 32/64 bit multiplatform Clipper compiler {{Authority control 1985 software Fourth-generation programming languages DOS software Dynamic programming languages Dynamically typed programming languages High-level programming languages Programming languages Programming languages created in 1985 XBase programming language family