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SNOBOL Dead

SNOBOL
KindProgramming language
Appeared1962
StatusDead
CreatorFarber, Griswold, Polonsky / Bell Labs
FamilySNOBOL
Also known asSNOBOL4

Bell Labs' pattern-matching language — programs were pattern rules, backtracking was the control flow, and the whole approach later re-emerged as Icon and as a thousand regex engines.

Succeeded by Icon
Descendants Icon

SNOBOL (1962) — Farber, Griswold, and Polonsky's Bell Labs string language — made pattern matching a primitive: PATTERN objects, backtracking, and string manipulation as the program's center.\n\nIts pattern-matching concepts influenced Icon, AWK, and modern regex; it remains the purest expression of strings-as-first-class.

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