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Scripting language
A scripting language or script language is a programming
language that is used to manipulate, customize, and automate the
facilities of an existing system.[1] Scripting languages are usually
interpreted at runtime rather than compiled.

A scripting language's primitives are usually elementary tasks or

API calls, and the scripting language allows them to be combined
into more programs. Environments that can be automated GDScript 3.4
through scripting include application software, text editors, web
pages, operating system shells, embedded systems, and computer
games. A scripting language can be viewed as a domain-specific language for a particular
environment; in the case of scripting an application, it is also known as an extension language.
Scripting languages are also sometimes referred to as very high-level programming languages, as they
sometimes operate at a high level of abstraction, or as control languages, particularly for job
control languages on mainframes.

The term scripting language is also used in a wider sense, namely, to refer to dynamic high-level
programming languages in general; some are strictly interpreted languages, while others use a form of
compilation. In this context, the term script refers to a small program in such a language; typically,
contained in a single file, and no larger than a few thousand lines of code.

The spectrum of scripting languages ranges from small to large, and from highly domain-specific
language to general-purpose programming languages. A language may start as small and highly
domain-specific and later develop into a portable and general-purpose language; conversely, a
general-purpose language may later develop special domain-specific dialects.

Examples
AWK, a text-processing language available in most Unix-like operating systems, which has been
ported to other operating systems.
Bash, an interpreted scripting language for use on Unix, GNU and other Unix-like operating
systems and environments.
Groovy is an object-oriented scripting language for the Java platform, similar to Python, Ruby, and
Smalltalk.
JavaScript (later: ECMAScript), originally a very small, highly domain-specific language, limited to
running within a web browser to dynamically modify the web page being shown, that later
developed into a widely portable general-purpose programming language.
Lisp, a family of general-purpose languages and extension languages for specific applications,
e.g. Emacs Lisp, for the Emacs editor.
Lua, a language designed for use as an extension language for applications in general, used by
many different applications.

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Perl,[2] a text-processing language that later developed into a general-purpose language, also
used as an extension language for various applications.
PowerShell, a scripting language originally for use with Microsoft Windows but later also available
for macOS and Linux.
Python, a general-purpose scripting language with simple syntax, also used as an extension
language.
Rexx, a scripting language in IBM's VM/SP R3. NetRexx and Object Rexx are based on REXX.
Used on several platforms. Also used as extension languages for applications.
Ruby, a general purpose programming language which supports multiple programming
paradigms. It was designed with an emphasis on productivity and simplicity.
sed, a text-processing language available in most Unix-like operating systems, which has been
ported to other operating systems.
Tcl,[3] a scripting language for Unix-like environments, popular in the 1990s. Can be used in
conjunction with Tk to develop GUI applications.
Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), an extension language developed specifically for Microsoft
Office applications, and implemented at least partially in many non-Microsoft applications.

Some game systems have been extensively extended in functionality by scripting extensions using
custom languages, notably the Second Life virtual world (using Linden Scripting Language) and the
Trainz franchise of Railroad simulators (using TrainzScript). In some games, such as Wesnoth, users
may play custom variants of the game defined by user-contributed scripts.

Characteristics
Typical scripting languages are intended to be very fast to learn and write in, either as short source
code files or interactively in a read–eval–print loop (REPL, language shell).[4] This generally implies
relatively simple syntax and semantics; typically a "script" (code written in the scripting language) is
executed from start to finish, as a "script", with no explicit entry point.

For example, it is uncommon to characterise Java as a scripting language because of its lengthy syntax
and rules about which classes exist in which files, and it is not directly possible to execute Java
interactively, because source files can only contain definitions that must be invoked externally by a
host application or application launcher.

public class HelloWorld {

public void printHelloWorld() {
System.out.println("Hello World");
}
}

This piece of code intended to print "Hello World" does nothing as main() is not declared in
HelloWorld class, although the one below would be useful.

public class HelloWorld {

public void printHelloWorld() {
System.out.println("Hello World");
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
printHelloWorld();
}
}

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In the example above, main is defined and so this can be invoked by the launcher, although this still
cannot be executed interactively. In contrast, Python allows the definition of some functions in a
single file, or to avoid functions altogether and use imperative programming style, or even use it
interactively.

print("Hello World")

This one line of Python code prints "Hello World"; no declarative statement like main() is required
here.

A scripting language is usually interpreted from source code or bytecode.[5] By contrast, the software
environment (interpreter) the scripts are written for is typically written in a compiled language and
distributed in machine code form.

Scripting languages may be designed for use by end users of a program—end-user development—or
may be only for internal use by developers, so they can write portions of the program in the scripting
language. Scripting languages typically use abstraction, a form of information hiding, to spare users
the details of internal variable types, data storage, and memory management.

Scripts are often created or modified by the person executing them,[6] but they are also often
distributed, such as when large portions of games are written in a scripting language, notably the
Google Chrome T-rex game.

History
Early mainframe computers (in the 1950s) were non-interactive, instead using batch processing.
IBM's Job Control Language (JCL) is the archetype of languages used to control batch processing.[7]

The first interactive shells were developed in the 1960s to enable remote operation of the first time-
sharing systems, and these used shell scripts, which controlled running computer programs within a
computer program, the shell. Calvin Mooers in his TRAC language is generally credited with inventing
command substitution, the ability to embed commands in scripts that when interpreted insert a
character string into the script.[8] Multics calls these active functions.[9] Louis Pouzin wrote an early
processor for command scripts called RUNCOM for CTSS around 1964. Stuart Madnick at MIT wrote
a scripting language for IBM's CP/CMS in 1966. He originally called this processor COMMAND, later
named EXEC.[10] Multics included an offshoot of CTSS RUNCOM, also called RUNCOM.[11] EXEC
was eventually replaced by EXEC 2 and REXX.

Languages such as Tcl and Lua were specifically designed as general-purpose scripting languages that
could be embedded in any application. Other languages such as Visual Basic for Applications (VBA)
provided strong integration with the automation facilities of an underlying system. Embedding of
such general-purpose scripting languages instead of developing a new language for each application
also had obvious benefits, relieving the application developer of the need to code a language translator
from scratch and allowing the user to apply skills learned elsewhere.

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Some software incorporates several different scripting languages. Modern web browsers typically
provide a language for writing extensions to the browser itself, and several standard embedded
languages for controlling the browser, including JavaScript (a dialect of ECMAScript) or XUL.

Types
Scripting languages can be categorized into several different types, with a considerable degree of
overlap among the types.

Glue languages

Scripting is often contrasted with system programming, as in Ousterhout's dichotomy or

"programming in the large and programming in the small". In this view, scripting is glue code,
connecting software components, and a language specialized for this purpose is a glue language.
Pipelines and shell scripting are archetypal examples of glue languages, and Perl was initially
developed to fill this same role. Web development can be considered a use of glue languages,
interfacing between a database and web server. But if a substantial amount of logic is written in script,
it is better characterized as simply another software component, not "glue".

Glue languages are especially useful for writing and maintaining:

custom commands for a command shell;[12]

smaller programs than those that are better implemented in a compiled language;[13]
"wrapper" programs for executables, like a batch file that moves or manipulates files and does
other things with the operating system before or after running an application like a word
processor, spreadsheet, data base, assembler, compiler, etc.;[14]
scripts that may change;[15]
Rapid application development of a solution eventually implemented in another, usually compiled,
language.

Glue language examples:

AppleScript PHP
ColdFusion PowerShell
DCL Pure
Embeddable Common Lisp Python
ecl Rebol
Erlang Red
EXEC Rexx
EXEC2 NetRexx
JCL Ruby
CoffeeScript Scheme
Julia Tcl
JScript and JavaScript Unix Shell scripts (ksh, csh, bash, sh and
Lua others)
m4 VBScript
Perl (5 and Raku) Work Flow Language
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XSLT

Macro languages exposed to operating system or application components can serve as glue languages.
These include Visual Basic for Applications, WordBasic, LotusScript, CorelScript (https://www.obero
nplace.com/tutor/page1.htm), Hummingbird Basic, QuickScript, Rexx, SaxBasic (https://msdn.micro
soft.com/en-us/library/ms994312.aspx), and WinWrap Basic. Other tools like AWK can also be
considered glue languages, as can any language implemented by a Windows Script Host engine
(VBScript, JScript and VBA by default in Windows and third-party engines including
implementations of Rexx, Perl, Tcl, Python, XSLT, Ruby, Modern Pascal, Delphi, and C). A majority
of applications can access and use operating system components via the object models or its own
functions.

Other devices like programmable calculators may also have glue languages; the operating systems of
PDAs such as Windows CE may have available native or third-party macro tools that glue applications
together, in addition to implementations of common glue languages—including Windows NT, DOS,
and some Unix shells, Rexx, Modern Pascal, PHP, and Perl. Depending upon the OS version, WSH
and the default script engines (VBScript and JScript) are available.

Programmable calculators can be programmed in glue languages in three ways. For example, the
Texas Instruments TI-92, by factory default can be programmed with a command script language.
Inclusion of the scripting and glue language Lua in the TI-NSpire series of calculators could be seen as
a successor to this. The primary on-board high-level programming languages of most graphing
calculators (most often Basic variants, sometimes Lisp derivatives, and more uncommonly, C
derivatives) in many cases can glue together calculator functions—such as graphs, lists, matrices, etc.
Third-party implementations of more comprehensive Basic version that may be closer to variants
listed as glue languages in this article are available—and attempts to implement Perl, Rexx, or various
operating system shells on the TI and HP graphing calculators are also mentioned. PC-based C cross-
compilers for some of the TI and HP machines used with tools that convert between C and Perl, Rexx,
AWK, and shell scripts to Perl, Modern Pascal, VBScript to and from Perl make it possible to write a
program in a glue language for eventual implementation (as a compiled program) on the calculator.

Editor languages

A number of text editors support macros written either using a macro language built into the editor,
e.g., The SemWare Editor (TSE), vi improved (VIM), or using an external implementation, e.g.,
XEDIT, or both, e.g., KEDIT. Sometimes text editors and edit macros are used under the covers to
provide other applications, e.g., FILELIST and RDRLIST in CMS .

Job control languages and shells

A major class of scripting languages has grown out of the automation of job control, which relates to
starting and controlling the behavior of system programs[16] (in this sense, one might think of shells
as being descendants of IBM's JCL, or Job Control Language, which was used for exactly this

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purpose). Many of these languages' interpreters double as command-line interpreters such as the
Unix shell or the MS-DOS COMMAND.COM. Others, such as AppleScript offer the use of English-like
commands to build scripts.

GUI scripting

With the advent of graphical user interfaces, a specialized kind of scripting language emerged for
controlling a computer. These languages interact with the same graphic windows, menus, buttons,
and so on, that a human user would. They do this by simulating the actions of a user. These languages
are typically used to automate user actions. Such languages are also called "macros" when control is
through simulated key presses or mouse clicks, as well as tapping or pressing on a touch-activated
screen.

These languages could in principle be used to control any GUI application; but, in practice their use is
limited because their use needs support from the application and from the operating system. There
are a few exceptions to this limitation. Some GUI scripting languages are based on recognizing
graphical objects from their display screen pixels. These GUI scripting languages do not depend on
support from the operating system or application.

When the GUI provides the appropriate interfaces, as in the IBM Workplace Shell, a generic scripting
language, e.g. OREXX, can be used for writing GUI scripts.

Application-specific languages

Application specific languages can be split in many different categories, i.e. standalone based app
languages (executable) or internal application specific languages (postscript, xml, gscript as some of
the widely distributed scripts, respectively implemented by Adobe, MS and Google) among others
include an idiomatic scripting language tailored to the needs of the application user. Likewise, many
computer game systems use a custom scripting language to express the programmed actions of non-
player characters and the game environment. Languages of this sort are designed for a single
application; and, while they may superficially resemble a specific general-purpose language (e.g.
QuakeC, modeled after C), they have custom features that distinguish them. Emacs Lisp, while a fully
formed and capable dialect of Lisp, contains many special features that make it most useful for
extending the editing functions of Emacs. An application-specific scripting language can be viewed as
a domain-specific programming language specialized to a single application.

Extension/embeddable languages

A number of languages have been designed for the purpose of replacing application-specific scripting
languages by being embeddable in application programs. The application programmer (working in C
or another systems language) includes "hooks" where the scripting language can control the
application. These languages may be technically equivalent to an application-specific extension
language but when an application embeds a "common" language, the user gets the advantage of being
able to transfer skills from application to application. A more generic alternative is simply to provide a
library (often a C library) that a general-purpose language can use to control the application, without
modifying the language for the specific domain.

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JavaScript began as and primarily still is a language for scripting inside web browsers; however, the
standardization of the language as ECMAScript has made it popular as a general-purpose embeddable
language. In particular, the Mozilla implementation SpiderMonkey is embedded in several
environments such as the Yahoo! Widget Engine. Other applications embedding ECMAScript
implementations include the Adobe products Adobe Flash (ActionScript) and Adobe Acrobat (for
scripting PDF files).

Tcl was created as an extension language but has come to be used more frequently as a general-
purpose language in roles similar to Python, Perl, and Ruby. On the other hand, Rexx was originally
created as a job control language, but is widely used as an extension language as well as a general-
purpose language. Perl is a general-purpose language, but had the Oraperl (1990) dialect, consisting
of a Perl 4 binary with Oracle Call Interface compiled in. This has however since been replaced by a
library (Perl Module), DBD::Oracle (https://metacpan.org/module/DBD::Oracle).[17][18]

Other complex and task-oriented applications may incorporate and expose an embedded
programming language to allow their users more control and give them more functionality than can
be available through a user interface, no matter how sophisticated. For example, Autodesk Maya 3D
authoring tools embed the Maya Embedded Language, or Blender which uses Python to fill this role.

Some other types of applications that need faster feature addition or tweak-and-run cycles (e.g. game
engines) also use an embedded language. During the development, this allows them to prototype
features faster and tweak more freely, without the need for the user to have intimate knowledge of the
inner workings of the application or to rebuild it after each tweak (which can take a significant
amount of time). The scripting languages used for this purpose range from the more common and
more famous Lua and Python to lesser-known ones such as AngelScript and Squirrel.

Ch is another C compatible scripting option for the industry to embed into C/C++ application
programs.

See also
Architecture description language
Authoring language
Build automation[19]
Configuration file
Interpreter directive / Shebang (Unix)
Templating language

References
1. "ECMAScript 2019 Language Specification" (https://tc39.github.io/ecma262/#sec-overview).
www.ecma-international.org. Retrieved 2018-04-02.
2. Sheppard, Doug (2000-10-16). "Beginner's Introduction to Perl" (http://www.perl.com/pub/2000/1
0/begperl1.html). dev.perl.org. Retrieved 2011-01-08.
3. Programming is Hard, Let's Go Scripting… (http://www.perl.com/pub/2007/12/06/soto-11.html),
Larry Wall, December 6, 2007

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4. Hey, Tony; Pápay, Gyuri (2014). The Computing Universe: A Journey through a Revolution.
Cambridge University Press. p. 76 (https://books.google.com/books?id=q4FIBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA7
6). ISBN 978-1-31612322-5, "A major characteristic of modern scripting languages is their
interactivity, sometimes referred to as a REPL programming environment. […] The characteristics
of ease of use and immediate execution with a REPL environment are sometimes taken as the
definition of a scripting language."
5. Brown, Vicki. "Scripting Languages" (http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.15/15.09/Scrip
tingLanguages/index.html). MacTech | The journal of Apple technology. Retrieved 2009-07-22.
6. Loui, Ronald (2008). "In praise of scripting" (https://web.archive.org/web/20150923211452/http://w
ww.cse.wustl.edu/~loui/praiseieee.html#). IEEE Computer. Archived from the original (http://www.c
se.wustl.edu/~loui/praiseieee.html) on 2015-09-23. Retrieved 2013-08-27.
7. IBM Corporation (1967). IBM System/360 Operating System Job Control Language (C28-6529-4)
(http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/os/R01-08/C28-6539-4_OS_JCL_Mar67.pdf) (PDF).
8. Mooers, Calvin. "TRAC, A Procedure-Describing Language for the Reactive Typewriter" (https://w
eb.archive.org/web/20010425014914/http://tracfoundation.org/trac64/procedure.htm). Archived
from the original (http://tracfoundation.org/trac64/procedure.htm) on 2001-04-25. Retrieved
March 9, 2012.
9. Van Vleck, Thomas (ed.). "Multics Glossary – A — (active function)" (http://www.multicians.org/mg
a.html). Retrieved March 9, 2012.
10. Varian, Melinda. "VM AND THE VM COMMUNITY: Past, Present, and Future" (http://web.me.co
m/melinda.varian/Site/Melinda_Varians_Home_Page_files/neuvm.pdf) (PDF). Retrieved March 9,
2012.
11. Van Vleck, Thomas (ed.). "Multics Glossary – R — (RUNCOM)" (http://www.multicians.org/mgr.ht
ml#runcom). Retrieved March 9, 2012.
12. "What is glue code (glue code language)? - Definition from WhatIs.com" (https://whatis.techtarget.
com/definition/glue-code). WhatIs.com. Retrieved 2022-01-31.
13. Larson, Quincy (10 January 2020). "Interpreted vs Compiled Programming Languages" (https://w
ww.freecodecamp.org/news/compiled-versus-interpreted-languages/). Free Code Camp.
Retrieved 23 February 2022.
14. Balkis, Anton. "Script Adalah" (https://rajatips.com/script/). Raja Tips. Retrieved 23 February 2022.
15. Axelsson, Mats. "Shell scripts - What can you change" (https://linuxhint.com/customize_shell_scri
pts/). Linux Hint. Retrieved 23 February 2022.
16. "Job Control Basics (Bash Reference Manual)" (https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_
node/Job-Control-Basics.html). www.gnu.org. Retrieved 2022-05-20.
17. Oraperl (https://metacpan.org/module/Oraperl), CPAN]
18. Perl (http://www.orafaq.com/wiki/Perl), Underground Oracle FAQ
19. van Rossum, Guido (January 6–8, 1998). "Glue it all together" (https://www.python.org/doc/essay
s/omg-darpa-mcc-position/). Glue It All Together With Python. python.org.

Further reading
Barron, David William (2001). The World of Scripting Languages. ISBN 0-471-99886-9.

External links
Patterns for Scripted Applications (https://web.archive.org/web/20041010125419/http://www.doc.i
c.ac.uk/~np2/patterns/scripting/) at the Wayback Machine (archived October 10, 2004)

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