A fourth-generation programming language (4GL) is a high-level

computer A computer is a machine that can be Computer programming, programmed to automatically Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (''computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic set ...

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 ...

that belongs to a class of languages envisioned as an advancement upon

third-generation programming language A third-generation programming language (3GL) is a high-level programming language, high-level computer programming language that tends to be more machine-independent and programmer-friendly than the machine code of the First-generation programmin ...

s (3GL). Each of the programming language generations aims to provide a higher level of

abstraction Abstraction is a process where general rules and concepts are derived from the use and classifying of specific examples, literal (reality, real or Abstract and concrete, concrete) signifiers, first principles, or other methods. "An abstraction" ...

of the internal

computer hardware Computer hardware includes the physical parts of a computer, such as the central processing unit (CPU), random-access memory (RAM), motherboard, computer data storage, graphics card, sound card, and computer case. It includes external devices ...

details, making the language more

programmer A programmer, computer programmer or coder is an author of computer source code someone with skill in computer programming. The professional titles Software development, ''software developer'' and Software engineering, ''software engineer' ...

-friendly, powerful, and versatile. While the definition of 4GL has changed over time, it can be typified by operating more with large collections of information at once rather than focusing on just bits and

byte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable un ...

s. Languages claimed to be 4GL may include support for

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...

management, report generation,

mathematical optimization Mathematical optimization (alternatively spelled ''optimisation'') or mathematical programming is the selection of a best element, with regard to some criteria, from some set of available alternatives. It is generally divided into two subfiel ...

graphical user interface A graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows user (computing), users to human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through Graphics, graphical icon (computing), icons and visual indicators such ...

(GUI)

development Development or developing may refer to: Arts *Development (music), the process by which thematic material is reshaped * Photographic development *Filmmaking, development phase, including finance and budgeting * Development hell, when a proje ...

, or

web development Web development is the work involved in developing a website for the Internet (World Wide Web) or an intranet (a private network). Web development can range from developing a simple single static page of plain text to complex web applications, ...

. Some researchers state that 4GLs are a subset of

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 ...

s. The concept of 4GL was developed from the 1970s through the 1990s, overlapping most of the development of 3GL, with 4GLs identified as "non-procedural" or "program-generating" languages, contrasted with 3GLs being algorithmic or procedural languages. While 3GLs like C, C++, C#,

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

, and

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language and core technology of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. Ninety-nine percent of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior. Web browsers have ...

remain popular for a wide variety of uses, 4GLs as originally defined found uses focused on databases, reports, and websites. Some advanced 3GLs like Python,

Ruby Ruby is a pinkish-red-to-blood-red-colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum ( aluminium oxide). Ruby is one of the most popular traditional jewelry gems and is very durable. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sapph ...

, and

Perl Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Though Perl is not officially an acronym, there are various backronyms in use, including "Practical Extraction and Reporting Language". Perl was developed ...

combine some 4GL abilities within a general-purpose 3GL environment, and

libraries A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...

with 4GL-like features have been developed as add-ons for most popular 3GLs, producing languages that are a mix of 3GL and 4GL, blurring the distinction. In the 1980s and 1990s, there were efforts to develop

fifth-generation programming language A fifth-generation programming language (5GL) is a high-level programming language based on problem-solving using constraints given to the program, rather than using an algorithm written by a programmer. Most constraint-based and logic program ...

s (5GL).

History

Though used earlier in papers and discussions, the term 4GL was first used formally by James Martin in his 1981 book ''Application Development Without Programmers'' to refer to non-procedural, high-level

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 exec ...

s. In some primitive way, early 4GLs were included in the

Informatics Informatics is the study of computational systems. According to the Association for Computing Machinery, ACM Europe Council and Informatics Europe, informatics is synonymous with computer science and computing as a profession, in which the centra ...

MARK-IV (1967) product and Sperry's

MAPPER MAPPER Systems, now known as Business Information Server, BIS, is a 4GL, fourth-generation programming language originally from Sperry Univac. Now owned by Unisys Corporation. Mapper originated in the 1970s based on some work in the 1960s, It ha ...

(1969 internal use, 1979 release). The motivations for the '4GL' inception and continued interest are several. The term can apply to a large set of software products. It can also apply to an approach that looks for greater

semantic Semantics is the study of linguistic Meaning (philosophy), meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this process involves the distinction betwee ...

properties and implementation power. Just as the 3GL offered greater power to the programmer, so too did the 4GL open up the development environment to a wider population. The early input scheme for the 4GL supported entry of data within the 72-character limit of the

punched card A punched card (also punch card or punched-card) is a stiff paper-based medium used to store digital information via the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Developed over the 18th to 20th centuries, punched cards were widel ...

(8 bytes used for sequencing) where a card's tag would identify the type or function. With judicious use of a few cards, the 4GL deck could offer a wide variety of processing and reporting capability whereas the equivalent functionality coded in a 3GL could subsume, perhaps, a whole box or more of cards. The 72-character format continued for a while as hardware progressed to larger memory and terminal interfaces. Even with its limitations, this approach supported highly sophisticated applications. As interfaces improved and allowed longer statement lengths and grammar-driven input handling, greater power ensued. An example of this is described on the

Nomad Nomads are communities without fixed habitation who regularly move to and from areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the population of nomadic pa ...

page. ::Another example of Nomad's power is illustrated by Nicholas Rawlings in his comments for the Computer History Museum about NCSS (see citation below). He reports that James Martin asked Rawlings for a Nomad solution to a standard problem Martin called the ''Engineer's Problem'': "give 6% raises to engineers whose job ratings had an average of 7 or better." Martin provided a "dozen pages of COBOL, and then just a page or two of Mark IV, from

." Rawlings offered the following single statement, performing a set-at-a-time operation... The development of the 4GL was influenced by several factors, with the hardware and operating system constraints having a large weight. When the 4GL was first introduced, a disparate mix of hardware and operating systems mandated custom application development support that was specific to the system in order to ensure sales. One example is the

system developed by Sperry. Though it has roots back to the beginning, the system has proven successful in many applications and has been ported to modern platforms. The latest variant is embedded in the BIS offering of

Unisys Unisys Corporation is a global technology solutions company founded in 1986 and headquartered in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. The company provides cloud, AI, digital workplace, logistics, and enterprise computing services. History Founding Unis ...

. MARK-IV is now known as VISION:BUILDER and is offered by

Computer Associates CA Technologies, Inc., formerly Computer Associates International, Inc., and CA, Inc., was an American multinational enterprise software developer and publisher that existed from 1976 to 2018. CA grew to rank as one of the largest independent ...

. The Santa Fe railroad used

to develop a system in a project that was an early example of 4GL,

rapid prototyping Rapid prototyping is a group of techniques used to quickly fabricate a scale model of a physical part or assembly using three-dimensional computer aided design ( CAD) data. Construction of the part or assembly is usually done using 3D printing ...

, and programming by users. The idea was that it was easier to teach railroad experts to use

than to teach programmers the "intricacies of railroad operations". One of the early (and portable) languages that had 4GL properties was RAMIS developed by Gerald C. Cohen at

Mathematica Wolfram (previously known as Mathematica and Wolfram Mathematica) is a software system with built-in libraries for several areas of technical computing that allows machine learning, statistics, symbolic computation, data manipulation, network ...

, a mathematical software company. Cohen left Mathematica and founded Information Builders to create a similar reporting-oriented 4GL, called

FOCUS Focus (: foci or focuses) may refer to: Arts * Focus or Focus Festival, former name of the Adelaide Fringe arts festival in East Australia Film *Focus (2001 film), ''Focus'' (2001 film), a 2001 film based on the Arthur Miller novel *Focus (2015 ...

. Later 4GL types are tied to a database system and are far different from the earlier types in their use of techniques and resources that have resulted from the general improvement of computing with time. An interesting twist to the 4GL scene is realization that graphical interfaces and the related reasoning done by the user form a 'language' that is poorly understood.

Types

A number of different types of 4GLs exist: * Table-driven (codeless) programming, usually running with a runtime framework and libraries. Instead of using code, the developer defines their logic by selecting an operation in a pre-defined list of memory or data table manipulation commands. In other words, instead of coding, the developer uses table-driven algorithm programming (see also control tables that can be used for this purpose). These types of tools can be used for business application development usually consisting in a package allowing for both business data manipulation and reporting, therefore they come with GUI screens and report editors. They usually offer integration with one or more lower level

dynamic-link library A dynamic-link library (DLL) is a shared library in the Microsoft Windows or OS/2 operating system. A DLL can contain executable code (functions), data, and resources. A DLL file often has file extension .dll even though this is not required ...

(DLL), generated from a typical 3GL for when the need arises for more hardware/OS specific operations. *

Report generator A report generator is a computer program whose purpose is to take data from a source such as a database, XML stream or a spreadsheet, and use it to produce a document in a format which satisfies a particular human readership. Report generation f ...

programming languages take a description of the data format and the report to generate and from that they either generate the required report directly or they generate a program to generate the report (see also RPG). *Similarly, screen generators (also called forms generators) manage online interactions with the application system users or generate programs to do so. * More ambitious 4GLs (sometimes termed ''fourth generation environments'') attempt to automatically generate whole systems from the outputs of

computer-aided software engineering 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 ...

(CASE) tools, specifications of screens and reports, and possibly also the specification of some additional processing logic. *

Data management Data management comprises all disciplines related to handling data as a valuable resource, it is the practice of managing an organization's data so it can be analyzed for decision making. Concept The concept of data management emerged alongsi ...

4GLs such as SAS,

SPSS SPSS Statistics is a statistical software suite developed by IBM for data management, advanced analytics, multivariate analysis, business intelligence, and criminal investigation. Long produced by SPSS Inc., it was acquired by IBM in 2009. Versi ...

, and Stata provide sophisticated coding commands for data manipulation, file reshaping, case selection, and data documentation in the preparation of data for

statistical analysis Statistical inference is the process of using data analysis to infer properties of an underlying probability distribution.Upton, G., Cook, I. (2008) ''Oxford Dictionary of Statistics'', OUP. . Inferential statistical analysis infers properties of ...

and reporting. *So-called "XTalk" languages, developed initially with Apple's Hypercard in 1987. Hypercard was the progenitor of more modern and powerful programs such as SuperCard, Toolbook and LiveCode. Some 4GLs have integrated tools that allow for the easy specification of all the required information: * James Martin's version of data engineering systems development methodology was automated to allow the input of the results of system analysis and design in the form of

data flow diagram A data-flow diagram is a way of representing a flow of data through a process or a system (usually an information system). The DFD also provides information about the outputs and inputs of each entity and the process itself. A data-flow diagram ha ...

entity relationship diagram An entity is something that Existence, exists as itself. It does not need to be of material existence. In particular, abstractions and legal fictions are usually regarded as entities. In general, there is also no presumption that an entity is Lif ...

s, entity life history diagrams etc., from which hundreds of thousands of lines of

COBOL COBOL (; an acronym for "common business-oriented language") is a compiled English-like computer programming language designed for business use. It is an imperative, procedural, and, since 2002, object-oriented language. COBOL is primarily ...

would be generated overnight. * More recently

Oracle Corporation Oracle Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational computer technology company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Co-founded in 1977 in Santa Clara, California, by Larry Ellison, who remains executive chairman, Oracle was ...

Oracle Designer Oracle Designer was Oracle's CASE tool for designing an information system and generating it. After generating the information system one is able to edit the generated code with Oracle Developer Suite. As of April 2018 this product has reached ...

and Oracle Developer Suite 4GL products could be integrated to produce database definitions and the forms and reports programs.

Low code environments

In the twenty-first century, 4GL systems have emerged as "low code" environments or platforms for the problem of rapid application development in short periods of time. Vendors often provide sample systems such as CRM, contract management, bug tracking from which development can occur with little programming.

Examples

General use / versatile

* 4th Dimension * Accell/SQL (4GL) from

Unify Corporation Daegis Inc. (formerly Unify Corporation) was one of the early developers of database management systems and tools for database development. It was founded in 1980 and headquartered in Irving, Texas. Unify initially focused on providing databases ...

. *Broadcom 2e Formerly Synon 4GL RPG/COBOL Generator * CA-Telon 4GL Cobol/PLI generator * Clarion * Clipper * Cognos PowerHouse 4GL * DataFlex (Microsoft Windows, web, mobile) * DATATRIEVE *

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 included the core database engine, a query system, a Form (programming), forms engine, and a pr ...

FileMaker FileMaker is a cross-platform relational database application developed by Claris International, a subsidiary of Apple Inc. It integrates a database engine with a graphical user interface ( GUI) and security features, allowing users to visu ...

* Forté TOOL (transactional object-oriented language) * GeneXus *

Harbour A harbor (American English), or harbour (Commonwealth English; see American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, spelling differences), is a sheltered body of water where ships, boats, and barges can be Mooring, moored. The t ...

HyperCard HyperCard is a application software, software application and software development kit, development kit for Apple Macintosh and Apple IIGS computers. It is among the first successful hypermedia systems predating the World Wide Web. HyperCard com ...

(development and support were ended) *IBM Rational EGL ( Enterprise Generation Language) * Infor * LabVIEW * LANSA * LINC * LiveCode * M-Power *

NATURAL Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the laws, elements and phenomena of the physical world, including life. Although humans are part ...

* Omnis Studio SDK * Oracle Application Development Framework * OutSystems (Productivity/PaaS) * Jmix/CUBA Platform (Productivity/Framework) *

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, s ...

* R:Base * SheerPower4GL (Microsoft Windows only) * SQLWindows/ Team Developer *

Uniface In archaeology, a uniface is a specific type of stone tool that has been flaked on one surface only. There are two general classes of uniface tools: modified flakes and formalized tools, which display deliberate, systematic modification of the margi ...

Unix Shell A Unix shell is a Command-line_interface#Command-line_interpreter, command-line interpreter or shell (computing), shell that provides a command line user interface for Unix-like operating systems. The shell is both an interactive command languag ...

Visual FoxPro Visual FoxPro is a programming language that was developed by Microsoft. It is a data-centric and procedural programming language with object-oriented programming (OOP) features. It was derived from FoxPro (which was itself descended from FoxB ...

(development and support were ended) * XBase++ * Xojo

Database
query language A query language, also known as data query language or database query language (DQL), is a computer language used to make queries in databases and information systems. In database systems, query languages rely on strict theory to retrieve informa ...
s

* 4D QL * Informix-4GL *

* OpenEdge Advanced Business Language (OpenEdge ABL) * OpenROAD (Ingres 4GL) * RAMIS *

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 ...

Report generators

*Speedware EasyReporter * LINC * Oracle Reports * OpenEdge Advanced Business Language (former Progress 4GL) Query/Results * RPG-II Extract data from files or database to create reports in a wide range of formats is done by the report generator tools.

Data manipulation, analysis, and reporting languages

Ab Initio ( ) is a Latin term meaning "from the beginning" and is derived from the Latin ("from") + , ablative singular of ("beginning"). Etymology , from Latin, literally "from the beginning", from ablative case of "entrance", "beginning", related t ...

ABAP ABAP (Advanced Business Application Programming, originally ''Allgemeiner Berichts-Aufbereitungs-Prozessor'', German for "general report preparation processor") is a high-level programming language created by the German software company SAP SE. ...

Audit Command Language An audit is an "independent examination of financial information of any entity, whether profit oriented or not, irrespective of its size or legal form when such an examination is conducted with a view to express an opinion thereon." Auditing al ...

* Clarion Programming Language * CorVision * Culprit * ADS/Online (plus transaction processing) * Easytrieve *

* GraphTalk * IDL *

IGOR Pro IGOR Pro is a scientific data analysis software, numerical computing environment and programming language that runs on Windows or Mac operating systems. It is developed by WaveMetrics Inc., and was originally aimed at time series analysis, but h ...

* Informix-4GL * JSL * LANSA * LabVIEW * LiveCode * M-Power * MANTIS *

( Unisys/Sperry) now part of BIS * MARK-IV ( Sterling/Informatics) now VISION:BUILDER of CA *

Simulink Simulink is a MATLAB-based graphical programming environment for modeling, simulating and analyzing multidomain dynamical systems. Its primary interface is a graphical block diagramming tool and a customizable set of block libraries. It offe ...

a component of

MATLAB MATLAB (an abbreviation of "MATrix LABoratory") is a proprietary multi-paradigm programming language and numeric computing environment developed by MathWorks. MATLAB allows matrix manipulations, plotting of functions and data, implementat ...

Octave In music, an octave (: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is an interval between two notes, one having twice the frequency of vibration of the other. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referr ...

PL/SQL PL/SQL (Procedural Language for SQL) is Oracle Corporation's procedural extension for SQL and the Oracle relational database. PL/SQL is available in Oracle Database (since version 6 - stored PL/SQL procedures/functions/packages/triggers sinc ...

* OpenEdge Advanced Business Language (former Progress 4GL) * R * RAMIS * S *

Scilab Scilab is a free and open-source, cross-platform numerical computational package and a high-level, numerically oriented programming language. It can be used for signal processing, statistical analysis, image enhancement, fluid dynamics simul ...

* SAS *

* SQL PL * SSIS * SQR * Stata * Synon *

Wolfram Language The Wolfram Language ( ) is a proprietary, very high-level multi-paradigm programming language developed by Wolfram Research. It emphasizes symbolic computation, functional programming, and rule-based programming and can employ arbitrary stru ...

* XBase++ *

XQuery XQuery (XML Query) is a query language and functional programming language designed to query and transform collections of structured and unstructured data, primarily in the form of XML. It also supports text data and, through implementation-sp ...

XSLT XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations) is a language originally designed for transforming XML documents into other XML documents, or other formats such as HTML for web pages, plain text, or XSL Formatting Objects. These formats c ...

Software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...
creators

* 4th Dimension (Software) * LiveCode *

's GUIDE * Omnis Studio * OpenROAD * OpenEdge Advanced Business Language (former Progress 4GL) AppBuilder * SuperTalk * Visual DataFlex * Xojo * XUL Can be used with

Mathematical optimization

AIMMS AIMMS (acronym for Advanced Interactive Multidimensional Modeling System) is a prescriptive analytics software company with offices in the Netherlands, United States, and Singapore. It has two main product offerings that provide modeling and optim ...

AMPL AMPL (A Mathematical Programming Language) is an algebraic modeling language to describe and solve high-complexity problems for large-scale mathematical computing (e.g. large-scale optimization and scheduling-type problems). It was developed ...

* GAMS *

* MathProg *

Database-driven GUI application development

* C/AL * Genexus * SB+/SystemBuilder * Unify VISION

Low-code / No-code development platforms

Source: * 1C:Enterprise programming language * Appcelerator *

Appian Appian of Alexandria (; ; ; ) was a Greek historian with Roman citizenship who prospered during the reigns of the Roman Emperors Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius. He was born c. 95 in Alexandria. After holding the senior offices in the pr ...

* Bizagi * DronaHQ * LANSA * M-Power * Microsoft Power Automate * Node-RED * OutSystems * Pegasystems * PNMsoft * OpenEdge Advanced Business Language (former Progress 4GL) Progress * ServiceNow * ViziApps

Screen painters and generators

* Oracle Forms * OpenEdge Advanced Business Language (former Progress 4GL) ProVision * SB+/SystemBuilder

Web development languages

*ActiveVFP * CFML * LANSA * OutSystems * Wavemaker

Music Programming language

* MaxMSP

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fourth-Generation Programming Language Programming language classification Fourth-generation programming languages