The Pascal Programming Language
Bill Catambay, Pascal Developer

The Pascal Programming Language
by Bill Catambay

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Pascal is still used today, both as a powerful educational tool for programming, as well as a viable language for industrial, commercial, scientific, shareware and freeware applications. The Pascal language is available on a number of different platforms, both commercially and through open source.

Platforms

Pascal is available for:

• OpenVMS VAX
• OpenVMS Alpha
• Tru64 Unix
• Windows 95/98/ME
• Windows NT
• Linux
• FreeBSD Unix
• OS/2
• Macintosh

See Table V in the Compilers section for a list of available compilers.

Compilers

Commercial versions of Pascal include Borland Pascal (aka, Turbo Pascal), Delphi, Compaq Pascal, THINK Pascal, and CodeWarrior Pascal. Turbo Pascal and THINK Pascal have not been updated for quite some time; likewise, CodeWarrior Pascal's final update is in progress at the time of this writing. Delphi and Compaq Pascal are both still commercially viable products, with yearly updates and full vendor support. Finally, FreePascal and GNU Pascal are ongoing open source projects, providing versions of Pascal freely available to the public.

Table V below provides a list of the more popular Pascal compilers available. In the "Supports" column, each compiler is rated for how well it adheres to the unextended Pascal standard (PAS) and the Extended Pascal standard (EPAS), and whether it supports the Object Pascal model (OP). For each standard, the compiler is also rated to what extent it supports that standard: Full, Nearly Full, or Partial. In addition to the Object Pascal as defined in the Object Pascal Technical Report, Borland designed a variation of Object Pascal. Compilers which adhere to Borland's Object Pascal model are designated as such.

Compiler and Vendor	Platforms	Supports
Compaq Pascal by Compaq Computer http://www.openvms.compaq.com/commercial/pascal/	OpenVMS Tru64 Unix	PAS - Full EPAS - Nearly Full
Prospero Extended Pascal by Prospero Software http://www.prosperosoftware.com/e32iw.html	Windows	PAS - Full EPAS - Full OP
Delphi by Borland http://www.borland.com/delphi/	Windows	Rapid Development **
THINK Pascal by Symantec http://www.think-pascal.com/	Macintosh	PAS - Full EPAS - Partial OP
CodeWarrior Pascal by Metrowerks	Macintosh Windows	PAS - Full EPAS - Partial OP
Borland Pascal by Borland	Windows	PAS - Nearly Full EPAS - Partial OP (Borland)
FreePascal http://www.freepascal.org/	Linux OS/2 FreeBSD Windows	PAS - Nearly Full EPAS - Partial OP (Borland)
GNU Pascal by Free Software Foundation http://www.gnu-pascal.de/	Linux OS/2 FreeBSD Windows	PAS - Full EPAS - Partial OP (Borland)

Table V: Available Pascal Compilers

** Borland's Delphi is a Rapid Application Development (RAD) Environment. It is based upon Pascal, but uses menus and windows for application building, hiding the code for the most part.

Internet

There is a number of internet resources which provide information, tools and support for Pascal programmers. Table VI below provides a list of a few of these resources. For a more complete list, visit http://pascal-central.com/plinks.html, the Pascal Links and Forums web page, at Pascal Central.

Web Site	Description
Learn Pascal http://www.taoyue.com/tutorials/pascal/	A very complete and comprehensive Pascal tutorial. The tutorial is searchable, and serves as a useful Pascal reference even after one has completed it.
Pascal Central http://pascal-central.com/	Provides the Pascal community one place to obtain Pascal technical information, Pascal source code, and Pascal-related internet links.
Prospero Pascal http://www.prosperosoftware.com/e32iw.html	Prospero fully supports both Pascal standards a well as the Pascal Committee's Object-oriented extensions.
Introduction to Pascal http://www.cit.ac.nz/smac/pascal/	Courses to help teach Pascal programming.
FreePascal http://www.freepascal.org/	Open Source Freeware Pascal Compiler supporting a variety of platforms.
GNU Pascal http://www.gnu-pascal.de/	Open Source Freeware Pascal Compiler supporting a variety of platforms.
MacTech Macintosh Pascal http://www.mactech.com/macintosh-pascal/	MacTech hosts the Macintosh Pascal Hobbyist Guide page.
THINK Pascal Guide http://www.think-pascal.com/	Ingemar's Guide to Think Pascal, a free Mac development environment.
Ingemar's Corner http://pascal-central.com/ingemars-corner.html	A descriptive list of very useful Pascal sample code at Ingemar's FTP site
How to Code Pascal http://www.allegro.com/papers/htpp.html	A paper focused on how to write quality Pascal code.
Khaan's Place http://www.algonet.se/~khaan/	A site devoted to Borland Pascal Programming, where you can learn Pascal and find lots of source code.
Pascal Tools http://pascal-central.com/tools.html	Free Pascal tools for Macintosh, Windows and Linux.

Table VI: Pascal Web Sites

In addition to these web sites, there are Pascal mailing lists that can be useful to both novice and expert Pascal programmers. Use the mailing lists to ask questions, trouble shoot problems with code, and share your expertise. A list of these Pascal mailing lists, including instructions on how to subscribe, can be found at the following web site:

http://pascal-central.com/plinks.html#anchor-lists