A high-level programming and command language

Unifying programming and command languages is a promising idea that has yet to be thoroughly exploited. Most attempts at such unification have used Lisp or traditional languages, such as Pascal. This paper describes the command and programming language EZ, which attempts to unify command and programming languages by using high-level string-processing concepts, such as those in SNOBOL4 and Icon. EZ has particularly simple data abstractions that attempt to bridge the gap between the data abstractions of command languages and those of programming languages. This is accomplished by type fusion, which pushes the differences between some classes of types, such as strings and text files, out of the language and into the implementation. The language, its use, and its implementation are described.