NetRexx

Description

NetRexx is an open source general-purpose programming language. It is a variant of the REXX programming language that runs on the Java virtual machine and in addition to the common REXX feature it has simplified syntax in some cases, Java-like object oriented extensions, unlimited precision arithmetic, better internet and/or networking integration and the ability to be either an interpreter or compile to a Java executable.

NetRexx has an interesting history, when IBM was writing their own Java stack on OS/2 in 1995, Mike Cowlishaw implemented a version of REXX that would run under the Java environment, and released it in 1996. This was not only the first external language to be released under the Java system, it did not compile to Java code but to Java bytecode, so it was also the first program to take advantage of the JVM as a runtime environment rather than as a Java environment. NetRexx is written in itself.

Versions

• Latest Version: 3.04 GA (2015-07-01)

Note, any version of NetRexx appears to work on the Java systems delivered with or for eComStation, however, version 3.03 has problems with some of the Java versions delivered for IBM mainframes while versions before 3.03 have problems running on Java 8 under windows.

• NetRexx v2.0.5 - Works better on old 1.x Java versions

Links

• IBM WebSite [1]
• RexxLA NetREXX official homepage [2]

License

• International Components for Unicode License (ICU) V1.8.1.

Author

• IBM
• RexxLA
• Mike Cowlishaw (Original author)

Publications

• NetRexx books Hobbes
• The EurOS/2 NetRexx page
• Creating Java Applications using NetRexx - IBM RedBook - (1997/09/10)