Informix-4GL is a

4GL A fourth-generation programming language (4GL) is a high-level computer programming language that belongs to a class of languages envisioned as an advancement upon third-generation programming languages (3GL). Each of the programming language g ...

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Programming languages are described in terms of their Syntax (programming languages), syntax (form) and semantics (computer science), semantics (meaning), usually def ...

developed by

Informix Informix is a product family within IBM's Information Management division that is centered on several relational database management system (RDBMS) and multi-model database offerings. The Informix products were originally developed by Inform ...

during the mid-1980s. At the time of its initial release in 1986, supported platforms included Microsoft Xenix (on

IBM PC AT The IBM Personal Computer AT (model 5170, abbreviated as IBM AT or PC/AT) was released in 1984 as the fourth model in the IBM Personal Computer line, following the IBM PC/XT and its IBM Portable PC variant. It was designed around the Intel 802 ...

DEC Ultrix Ultrix (officially all-caps ULTRIX) is the brand name of Digital Equipment Corporation's (DEC) discontinued native Unix operating systems for the PDP-11, VAX, MicroVAX and DECstations. History The initial development of Unix occurred on DEC equip ...

(running on Microvax II, VAX-11/750, VAX-11/785,

VAX 8600 The VAX 8000 is a discontinued family of superminicomputers developed and manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) using processors implementing the VAX instruction set architecture (ISA). The 8000 series was introduced in October 1984 ...

), Altos 2086, AT&T 3B2, AT&T 3B5, AT&T 3B20 and

AT&T Unix PC The AT&T UNIX PC is a Unix desktop computer originally developed by Convergent Technologies (later acquired by Unisys), and marketed by AT&T Information Systems in the mid- to late-1980s. The system was codenamed "Safari 4" and is also known as th ...

Description

It includes embedded

SQL Structured Query Language (SQL) (pronounced ''S-Q-L''; or alternatively as "sequel") is a domain-specific language used to manage data, especially in a relational database management system (RDBMS). It is particularly useful in handling s ...

, a report writer language, a form language, and a limited set of imperative capabilities (functions, if and while statements, and supports arrays etc.). The language is particularly close to a natural language and is easy to learn and use. The Form Painter, Screen Code Generator, Report Code Generator (Featurizer) enabled adding custom business logic. It also had, as additional components a menu system, and a front-end

GUI Gui or GUI may refer to: People Surname * Gui (surname), an ancient Chinese surname, ''xing'' * Bernard Gui (1261 or 1262–1331), inquisitor of the Dominican Order * Luigi Gui (1914–2010), Italian politician * Gui Minhai (born 1964), Ch ...

(graphical user interface) Generator. The package includes two versions of compiler which either produce 1) intermediate byte codeknown as P-code, for Pseudo-Code, which ran interpretively for an interpreter (known as the rapid development system), or 2)

C Programming Language C (''pronounced'' '' – like the letter c'') is a general-purpose programming language. It was created in the 1970s by Dennis Ritchie and remains very widely used and influential. By design, C's features cleanly reflect the capabilities of ...

code for compilation with a C compiler into machine-code (which executes faster, but compiles slower, and executables are bigger). It is specifically designed to run as a client on a network, connected to an IBM Informix database engine service. It has a mechanism for calling

functions and conversely, to be called from executing C programs. The RDS version also features an interactive debugger for

Dumb terminal A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that can be used for entering data into, and transcribing data from, a computer or a computing system. Most early computers only had a front panel to input or display ...

s. A particular feature is the comprehensive error checking which is built into the final executable and the extremely helpful error messages produced by both compilers and executables. It also features embedded modal statements for changing compiler and executable behaviour (e.g. causing the compiler to include memory structures matching database schema structures and elements, or to continue executing in spite of error conditions, which can be trapped later on).

History

The Informix-4GL project was started in 1985, with Chris Maloney as chief architect. Roy Harrington was in charge of the related

Turbo (later renamed Online) engine, which bypassed the "cooked" file system and instead used "raw" disk access. It was based on software developed in 1983 by FourGen Software Technologies, which were based in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

. The bundled product was presented by Informix as ‘’’Forms’’’ and ‘’’Menu’’’ until 1996. This ‘’’Rapid Application Development’’’ product, marketed as

FourGen CASE Tools Computer-aided software engineering (CASE) is a domain of software tools used to design and implement applications. CASE tools are similar to and are partly inspired by computer-aided design (CAD) tools used for designing hardware products. CASE ...

, could access the user’s choice of ‘’’Informix’’’ and/or IBM’s DB2 databases. Another flavor of Informix programming-tool was produced, called "NewEra", which supported

object-oriented programming Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of '' objects''. Objects can contain data (called fields, attributes or properties) and have actions they can perform (called procedures or methods and impl ...

and a level of code-compatibility with Informix-4GL. Informix was acquired by IBM in April 2001. Despite its age, Informix-4GL is still widely used to develop business applications, and a sizable market exists around it due to its popularity. With accounting being an inherently text based activity, it is often chosen for its purely text-based interface to optimize data entry efficiency. These tools are available today on major flavors of

UNIX Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user 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, a ...

and

Red Hat Linux Red Hat Linux was a widely used commercial open-source Linux distribution created by Red Hat until its discontinuation in 2004. Early releases of Red Hat Linux were called Red Hat Commercial Linux. Red Hat published the first non-beta release ...

and

SUSE Linux openSUSE () is a free and open-source Linux distribution developed by the openSUSE project. It is offered in two main variations: ''Tumbleweed'', an upstream rolling release distribution, and ''Leap'', a stable release distribution which is so ...

operating systems; the FOURGEN business was later acquired in 2002, by www.gillan.com.

References

{{Authority control Fourth-generation programming languages Informix-4GL