An application programming interface ( API ) is a connection between computers or between computer programs . It is a type of software interface , offering a service to other pieces of software . A document or standard that describes how to build such a connection or interface is called an API specification . A computer system that meets this standard is said to implement or expose an API. The term API may refer either to the specification or to the implementation.
85-540: OLE DB ( Object Linking and Embedding, Database , sometimes written as OLEDB or OLE-DB ) is an API designed by Microsoft that allows accessing data from a variety of sources in a uniform manner. The API provides a set of interfaces implemented using the Component Object Model (COM); it is otherwise unrelated to OLE . Microsoft originally intended OLE DB as a higher-level replacement for, and successor to, ODBC , extending its feature set to support
170-413: A call stack , a special case of the stack data structure , to implement function calls and returns. Each procedure call creates a new entry, called a stack frame , at the top of the stack; when the procedure returns, its stack frame is deleted from the stack, and its space may be used for other procedure calls. Each stack frame contains the private data of the corresponding call, which typically includes
255-544: A procedural language such as Lua could consist primarily of basic routines to execute code, manipulate data or handle errors while an API for an object-oriented language , such as Java, would provide a specification of classes and its class methods . Hyrum's law states that "With a sufficient number of users of an API, it does not matter what you promise in the contract: all observable behaviors of your system will be depended on by somebody." Meanwhile, several studies show that most applications that use an API tend to use
340-420: A software framework : a framework can be based on several libraries implementing several APIs, but unlike the normal use of an API, the access to the behavior built into the framework is mediated by extending its content with new classes plugged into the framework itself. Moreover, the overall program flow of control can be out of the control of the caller and in the framework's hands by inversion of control or
425-496: A user interface , an API is typically not visible to users. It is an "under the hood" portion of a software system, used for machine-to-machine communication. A well-designed API exposes only objects or actions needed by software or software developers. It hides details that have no use. This abstraction simplifies programming. Building software using APIs has been compared to using building-block toys, such as Lego bricks. Software services or software libraries are analogous to
510-449: A broad term describing much of the communication on the internet. When used in this way, the term API has overlap in meaning with the term communication protocol . The interface to a software library is one type of API. The API describes and prescribes the "expected behavior" (a specification) while the library is an "actual implementation" of this set of rules. A single API can have multiple implementations (or none, being abstract) in
595-517: A business ecosystem. The main policies for releasing an API are: An important factor when an API becomes public is its "interface stability". Changes to the API—for example adding new parameters to a function call—could break compatibility with the clients that depend on that API. When parts of a publicly presented API are subject to change and thus not stable, such parts of a particular API should be documented explicitly as "unstable". For example, in
680-485: A capability to programming that has commonality. The term used tends to reflect the context in which it is used – usually based on the language being used. For example: The idea of a callable unit was initially conceived by John Mauchly and Kathleen Antonelli during their work on ENIAC and recorded in a January 1947 Harvard symposium on "Preparation of Problems for EDVAC -type Machines." Maurice Wilkes , David Wheeler , and Stanley Gill are generally credited with
765-460: A client would need to know for practical purposes. Documentation is crucial for the development and maintenance of applications using the API. API documentation is traditionally found in documentation files but can also be found in social media such as blogs, forums, and Q&A websites. Traditional documentation files are often presented via a documentation system, such as Javadoc or Pydoc, that has
850-435: A consistent appearance and structure. However, the types of content included in the documentation differs from API to API. In the interest of clarity, API documentation may include a description of classes and methods in the API as well as "typical usage scenarios, code snippets, design rationales, performance discussions, and contracts", but implementation details of the API services themselves are usually omitted. It can take
935-553: A data source. OLE DB providers are analogous to ODBC drivers , JDBC drivers , and ADO.NET data providers . OLE DB providers can be created to access such simple data stores as a text file and spreadsheet, through to such complex databases as Oracle , Microsoft SQL Server , Sybase ASE , and many others. It can also provide access to hierarchical data stores such as email systems. However, because different data store technologies can have different capabilities, every OLE DB provider cannot implement every possible interface available in
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#17327932512101020-456: A data store; these capabilities are known as services in Microsoft parlance. Application programming interface In contrast to a user interface , which connects a computer to a person, an application programming interface connects computers or pieces of software to each other. It is not intended to be used directly by a person (the end user ) other than a computer programmer who
1105-647: A dedicated hardware stack to store return addresses—such hardware supports only a few levels of subroutine nesting, but can support recursive subroutines. Machines before the mid-1960s—such as the UNIVAC I , the PDP-1 , and the IBM 1130 —typically use a calling convention which saved the instruction counter in the first memory location of the called subroutine. This allows arbitrarily deep levels of subroutine nesting but does not support recursive subroutines. The IBM System/360 had
1190-417: A different name for a callable unit that returns a value ( function or subprogram ) vs. one that does not ( subroutine or procedure ). Other languages, such as C , C++ , C# and Lisp , use only one name for a callable unit, function . The C-family languages use the keyword void to indicate no return value. If declared to return a value, a call can be embedded in an expression in order to consume
1275-534: A given API, it is possible to infer the typical usages, as well the required contracts and directives. Then, templates can be used to generate natural language from the mined data. In 2010, Oracle Corporation sued Google for having distributed a new implementation of Java embedded in the Android operating system. Google had not acquired any permission to reproduce the Java API, although permission had been given to
1360-421: A library, in the literal sense, which kept indexed collections of tapes or decks of cards for collective use. To remove the need for self-modifying code , computer designers eventually provided an indirect jump instruction, whose operand, instead of being the return address itself, was the location of a variable or processor register containing the return address. On those computers, instead of modifying
1445-441: A modular software library in the 1940s for EDSAC , an early computer. The subroutines in this library were stored on punched paper tape organized in a filing cabinet . This cabinet also contained what Wilkes and Wheeler called a "library catalog" of notes about each subroutine and how to incorporate it into a program. Today, such a catalog would be called an API (or an API specification or API documentation) because it instructs
1530-470: A number of forms, including instructional documents, tutorials, and reference works. It'll also include a variety of information types, including guides and functionalities. Restrictions and limitations on how the API can be used are also covered by the documentation. For instance, documentation for an API function could note that its parameters cannot be null, that the function itself is not thread safe . Because API documentation tends to be comprehensive, it
1615-443: A powerful programming tool. The primary purpose is to allow for the decomposition of a large and/or complicated problem into chunks that have relatively low cognitive load and to assign the chunks meaningful names (unless they are anonymous). Judicious application can reduce the cost of developing and maintaining software, while increasing its quality and reliability. Callable units are present at multiple levels of abstraction in
1700-440: A programmer on how to use (or "call") each subroutine that the programmer needs. Wilkes and Wheeler's book The Preparation of Programs for an Electronic Digital Computer contains the first published API specification. Joshua Bloch considers that Wilkes and Wheeler "latently invented" the API, because it is more of a concept that is discovered than invented. The term "application program interface" (without an -ing suffix)
1785-517: A related Microsoft FAQ, "Providers like ADO.NET which can run on top of OLE DB will not support OLE DB once the latter is deprecated ", but the same answer in the FAQ states that the original post relates only to the OLE DB provider for SQL Server, so the position of OLE DB itself remains unclear. The same FAQ states that ODBC performs better than OLE DB in most cases. However, during subsequent reviews it
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#17327932512101870-456: A sequence of numbers, and so on through the list of subroutines needed for a particular problem. ... All these subroutines will then be stored in the machine, and all one needs to do is make a brief reference to them by number, as they are indicated in the coding. Kay McNulty had worked closely with John Mauchly on the ENIAC team and developed an idea for subroutines for the ENIAC computer she
1955-643: A shipping company API that can be added to an eCommerce-focused website to facilitate ordering shipping services and automatically include current shipping rates, without the site developer having to enter the shipper's rate table into a web database. While "web API" historically has been virtually synonymous with web service , the recent trend (so-called Web 2.0 ) has been moving away from Simple Object Access Protocol ( SOAP ) based web services and service-oriented architecture (SOA) towards more direct representational state transfer (REST) style web resources and resource-oriented architecture (ROA). Part of this trend
2040-404: A similar mechanism. An API can specify the interface between an application and the operating system . POSIX , for example, specifies a set of common APIs that aim to enable an application written for a POSIX conformant operating system to be compiled for another POSIX conformant operating system. Linux and Berkeley Software Distribution are examples of operating systems that implement
2125-441: A small part of the API. Language bindings are also APIs. By mapping the features and capabilities of one language to an interface implemented in another language, a language binding allows a library or service written in one language to be used when developing in another language. Tools such as SWIG and F2PY, a Fortran -to- Python interface generator, facilitate the creation of such interfaces. An API can also be related to
2210-427: A subroutine call instruction that placed the saved instruction counter value into a general-purpose register; this can be used to support arbitrarily deep subroutine nesting and recursive subroutines. The Burroughs B5000 (1961) is one of the first computers to store subroutine return data on a stack. The DEC PDP-6 (1964) is one of the first accumulator-based machines to have a subroutine call instruction that saved
2295-462: A subroutine called MYSUB from the main program. The subroutine would be coded as The JSB instruction placed the address of the NEXT instruction (namely, BB) into the location specified as its operand (namely, MYSUB), and then branched to the NEXT location after that (namely, AA = MYSUB + 1). The subroutine could then return to the main program by executing the indirect jump JMP MYSUB, I which branched to
2380-420: A system of commands and thereby bar all others from writing its different versions to carry out all or part of the same commands. Subroutine In computer programming , a function (also procedure , method , subroutine , routine , or subprogram ) is a callable unit of software logic that has a well-defined interface and behavior and can be invoked multiple times. Callable units provide
2465-499: A wider variety of non- relational databases , such as object databases and spreadsheets that do not necessarily implement. OLE DB separates the data store from the application that needs access to it through a set of abstractions that include the datasource, session, command, and rowsets. This was done because different applications need access to different types and sources of data, and do not necessarily want to know how to access functionality with technology-specific methods. OLE DB
2550-454: Is a challenge for writers to keep the documentation updated and for users to read it carefully, potentially yielding bugs. API documentation can be enriched with metadata information like Java annotations . This metadata can be used by the compiler, tools, and by the run-time environment to implement custom behaviors or custom handling. It is possible to generate API documentation in a data-driven manner. By observing many programs that use
2635-430: Is an API response . A weather forecasting app might integrate with a number of weather sensor APIs, gathering weather data from throughout a geographical area. An API is often compared to a contract . It represents an agreement between parties: a service provider who offers the API and the software developers who rely upon it. If the API remains stable, or if it changes only in predictable ways, developers' confidence in
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2720-512: Is an architectural approach that revolves around providing a program interface to a set of services to different applications serving different types of consumers. When used in the context of web development , an API is typically defined as a set of specifications, such as Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) request messages, along with a definition of the structure of response messages, usually in an Extensible Markup Language ( XML ) or JavaScript Object Notation ( JSON ) format. An example might be
2805-580: Is conceptually divided into consumers and providers . The consumers are the applications that need access to the data, and the providers are the software components that implement the interface and thereby provides the data to the consumer. OLE DB is part of the Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC). Microsoft's release of SQL Server 2012 (internal code: 'Denali') is the last to include an OLE DB provider for SQL Server, but support will continue for 7 years. According to
2890-522: Is created in one place dynamically can be posted and updated to multiple locations on the web. For example, Twitter's REST API allows developers to access core Twitter data and the Search API provides methods for developers to interact with Twitter Search and trends data. The design of an API has significant impact on its usage. The principle of information hiding describes the role of programming interfaces as enabling modular programming by hiding
2975-399: Is first recorded in a paper called Data structures and techniques for remote computer graphics presented at an AFIPS conference in 1968. The authors of this paper use the term to describe the interaction of an application—a graphics program in this case—with the rest of the computer system. A consistent application interface (consisting of Fortran subroutine calls) was intended to free
3060-464: Is incorporating it into software. An API is often made up of different parts which act as tools or services that are available to the programmer. A program or a programmer that uses one of these parts is said to call that portion of the API. The calls that make up the API are also known as subroutines , methods, requests, or endpoints . An API specification defines these calls, meaning that it explains how to use or implement them. One purpose of APIs
3145-415: Is most obvious and objectionable in leaf procedures or leaf functions , which return without making any procedure calls themselves. To reduce that overhead, many modern compilers try to delay the use of a call stack until it is really needed. For example, the call of a procedure P may store the return address and parameters of the called procedure in certain processor registers, and transfer control to
3230-453: Is now the most common meaning of the term API. The Semantic Web proposed by Tim Berners-Lee in 2001 included "semantic APIs" that recast the API as an open , distributed data interface rather than a software behavior interface. Proprietary interfaces and agents became more widespread than open ones, but the idea of the API as a data interface took hold. Because web APIs are widely used to exchange data of all kinds online, API has become
3315-418: Is possible, since all the logical characteristics essential to this procedure are available, to evolve a coding instruction for placing the subroutines in the memory at places known to the machine, and in such a way that they may easily be called into use. In other words, one can designate subroutine A as division and subroutine B as complex multiplication and subroutine C as the evaluation of a standard error of
3400-475: Is related to the Semantic Web movement toward Resource Description Framework (RDF), a concept to promote web-based ontology engineering technologies. Web APIs allow the combination of multiple APIs into new applications known as mashups . In the social media space, web APIs have allowed web communities to facilitate sharing content and data between communities and applications. In this way, content that
3485-440: Is to hide the internal details of how a system works, exposing only those parts a programmer will find useful and keeping them consistent even if the internal details later change. An API may be custom-built for a particular pair of systems, or it may be a shared standard allowing interoperability among many systems. The term API is often used to refer to web APIs , which allow communication between computers that are joined by
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3570-401: Is used to declare no return value; for example void in C, C++ and C#. In some languages, such as Python, the difference is whether the body contains a return statement with a value, and a particular callable may return with or without a value based on control flow. In many contexts, a callable may have side effect behavior such as modifying passed or global data, reading from or writing to
3655-438: Is usually implemented as a contiguous area of memory. It is an arbitrary design choice whether the bottom of the stack is the lowest or highest address within this area, so that the stack may grow forwards or backwards in memory; however, many architectures chose the latter. Some designs, notably some Forth implementations, used two separate stacks, one mainly for control information (like return addresses and loop counters) and
3740-549: The Google Guava library, the parts that are considered unstable, and that might change soon, are marked with the Java annotation @Beta . A public API can sometimes declare parts of itself as deprecated or rescinded. This usually means that part of the API should be considered a candidate for being removed, or modified in a backward incompatible way. Therefore, these changes allow developers to transition away from parts of
3825-686: The Java language in particular. In the 1990s, with the spread of the internet , standards like CORBA , COM , and DCOM competed to become the most common way to expose API services. Roy Fielding 's dissertation Architectural Styles and the Design of Network-based Software Architectures at UC Irvine in 2000 outlined Representational state transfer (REST) and described the idea of a "network-based Application Programming Interface" that Fielding contrasted with traditional "library-based" APIs. XML and JSON web APIs saw widespread commercial adoption beginning in 2000 and continuing as of 2021. The web API
3910-512: The Java remote method invocation API uses the Java Remote Method Protocol to allow invocation of functions that operate remotely, but appear local to the developer. Therefore, remote APIs are useful in maintaining the object abstraction in object-oriented programming ; a method call , executed locally on a proxy object, invokes the corresponding method on the remote object, using the remoting protocol, and acquires
3995-556: The Linux Standard Base provides an ABI. Remote APIs allow developers to manipulate remote resources through protocols , specific standards for communication that allow different technologies to work together, regardless of language or platform. For example, the Java Database Connectivity API allows developers to query many different types of databases with the same set of functions, while
4080-524: The execution of a program. Execution continues at the next instruction after the call instruction when it returns control. The features of implementations of callable units evolved over time and varies by context. This section describes features of the various common implementations. Most modern programming languages provide features to define and call functions, including syntax for accessing such features, including: Some languages, such as Pascal , Fortran , Ada and many dialects of BASIC , use
4165-479: The internet . There are also APIs for programming languages , software libraries , computer operating systems , and computer hardware . APIs originated in the 1940s, though the term did not emerge until the 1960s and 70s. An API opens a software system to interactions from the outside. It allows two software systems to communicate across a boundary — an interface — using mutually agreed-upon signals. In other words, an API connects software entities together. Unlike
4250-461: The API that will be removed or not supported in the future. Client code may contain innovative or opportunistic usages that were not intended by the API designers. In other words, for a library with a significant user base, when an element becomes part of the public API, it may be used in diverse ways. On February 19, 2020, Akamai published their annual “State of the Internet” report, showcasing
4335-489: The API will increase. This may increase their use of the API. The term API initially described an interface only for end-user-facing programs, known as application programs . This origin is still reflected in the name "application programming interface." Today, the term is broader, including also utility software and even hardware interfaces . The idea of the API is much older than the term itself. British computer scientists Maurice Wilkes and David Wheeler worked on
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#17327932512104420-497: The IBM System/360 , for example, the branch instructions BAL or BALR, designed for procedure calling, would save the return address in a processor register specified in the instruction, by convention register 14. To return, the subroutine had only to execute an indirect branch instruction (BR) through that register. If the subroutine needed that register for some other purpose (such as calling another subroutine), it would save
4505-401: The OLE DB standard. The capabilities that are available are implemented through the use of COM objects; an OLE DB provider will map the data store technologies functionality to a particular COM interface. Microsoft describes the availability of an interface as "provider-specific," as it may not be applicable depending on the data store technology involved. Providers may augment the capabilities of
4590-502: The POSIX APIs. Microsoft has shown a strong commitment to a backward-compatible API, particularly within its Windows API (Win32) library, so older applications may run on newer versions of Windows using an executable-specific setting called "Compatibility Mode". An API differs from an application binary interface (ABI) in that an API is source code based while an ABI is binary based. For instance, POSIX provides APIs while
4675-401: The application programming interface separately from other interfaces, such as the query interface. Database professionals in the 1970s observed these different interfaces could be combined; a sufficiently rich application interface could support the other interfaces as well. This observation led to APIs that supported all types of programming, not just application programming. By 1990, the API
4760-413: The bricks; they may be joined together via their APIs, composing a new software product. The process of joining is called integration . As an example, consider a weather sensor that offers an API. When a certain message is transmitted to the sensor, it will detect the current weather conditions and reply with a weather report. The message that activates the sensor is an API call , and the weather report
4845-546: The call stack mechanism can be viewed as the earliest and simplest method for automatic memory management . However, another advantage of the call stack method is that it allows recursive function calls , since each nested call to the same procedure gets a separate instance of its private data. In a multi-threaded environment, there is generally more than one stack. An environment that fully supports coroutines or lazy evaluation may use data structures other than stacks to store their activation records. One disadvantage of
4930-448: The call stack mechanism is the increased cost of a procedure call and its matching return. The extra cost includes incrementing and decrementing the stack pointer (and, in some architectures, checking for stack overflow ), and accessing the local variables and parameters by frame-relative addresses, instead of absolute addresses. The cost may be realized in increased execution time, or increased processor complexity, or both. This overhead
5015-439: The callable declares as formal parameters . A caller passes actual parameters , a.k.a. arguments , to match. Different programming languages provide different conventions for passing arguments. In some languages, such as BASIC, a callable has different syntax (i.e. keyword) for a callable that returns a value vs. one that does not. In other languages, the syntax is the same regardless. In some of these languages an extra keyword
5100-470: The early 1980s, to discover the recalculation dependencies in a spreadsheet. Namely, a location was reserved in each cell to store the return address. Since circular references are not allowed for natural recalculation order, this allows a tree walk without reserving space for a stack in memory, which was very limited on small computers such as the IBM PC . Most modern implementations of a function call use
5185-420: The form of different libraries that share the same programming interface. The separation of the API from its implementation can allow programs written in one language to use a library written in another. For example, because Scala and Java compile to compatible bytecode , Scala developers can take advantage of any Java API. API use can vary depending on the type of programming language involved. An API for
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#17327932512105270-579: The formal invention of this concept, which they termed a closed sub-routine , contrasted with an open subroutine or macro . However, Alan Turing had discussed subroutines in a paper of 1945 on design proposals for the NPL ACE , going so far as to invent the concept of a return address stack . The idea of a subroutine was worked out after computing machines had already existed for some time. The arithmetic and conditional jump instructions were planned ahead of time and have changed relatively little, but
5355-422: The function's return jump, the calling program would store the return address in a variable so that when the function completed, it would execute an indirect jump that would direct execution to the location given by the predefined variable. Another advance was the jump to subroutine instruction, which combined the saving of the return address with the calling jump, thereby minimizing overhead significantly. In
5440-476: The growing trend of cybercriminals targeting public API platforms at financial services worldwide. From December 2017 through November 2019, Akamai witnessed 85.42 billion credential violation attacks. About 20%, or 16.55 billion, were against hostnames defined as API endpoints. Of these, 473.5 million have targeted financial services sector organizations. API documentation describes what services an API offers and how to use those services, aiming to cover everything
5525-490: The implementation details of the modules so that users of modules need not understand the complexities inside the modules. Thus, the design of an API attempts to provide only the tools a user would expect. The design of programming interfaces represents an important part of software architecture , the organization of a complex piece of software. APIs are one of the more common ways technology companies integrate. Those that provide and use APIs are considered as being members of
5610-412: The location stored at location MYSUB. Compilers for Fortran and other languages could easily make use of these instructions when available. This approach supported multiple levels of calls; however, since the return address, parameters, and return values of a subroutine were assigned fixed memory locations, it did not allow for recursive calls. Incidentally, a similar method was used by Lotus 1-2-3 , in
5695-496: The other for data. The former was, or worked like, a call stack and was only indirectly accessible to the programmer through other language constructs while the latter was more directly accessible. When stack-based procedure calls were first introduced, an important motivation was to save precious memory. With this scheme, the compiler does not have to reserve separate space in memory for the private data (parameters, return address, and local variables) of each procedure. At any moment,
5780-522: The procedure's body by a simple jump. If the procedure P returns without making any other call, the call stack is not used at all. If P needs to call another procedure Q , it will then use the call stack to save the contents of any registers (such as the return address) that will be needed after Q returns. In general, a callable unit is a list of instructions that, starting at the first instruction, executes sequentially except as directed via its internal logic. It can be invoked (called) many times during
5865-408: The procedure's parameters and internal variables, and the return address. The call sequence can be implemented by a sequence of ordinary instructions (an approach still used in reduced instruction set computing (RISC) and very long instruction word (VLIW) architectures), but many traditional machines designed since the late 1960s have included special instructions for that purpose. The call stack
5950-421: The program instructions into memory from a punched paper tape . Each subroutine could then be provided by a separate piece of tape, loaded or spliced before or after the main program (or "mainline" ); and the same subroutine tape could then be used by many different programs. A similar approach was used in computers that loaded program instructions from punched cards . The name subroutine library originally meant
6035-614: The programmer from dealing with idiosyncrasies of the graphics display device, and to provide hardware independence if the computer or the display were replaced. The term was introduced to the field of databases by C. J. Date in a 1974 paper called The Relational and Network Approaches: Comparison of the Application Programming Interface . An API became a part of the ANSI/SPARC framework for database management systems . This framework treated
6120-492: The programming environment. For example, a programmer may write a function in source code that is compiled to machine code that implements similar semantics . There is a callable unit in the source code and an associated one in the machine code, but they are different kinds of callable units – with different implications and features. The meaning of each callable term (function, procedure, method, ...) is, in fact, different. They are not synonymous . Nevertheless, they each add
6205-555: The register's contents to a private memory location or a register stack . In systems such as the HP 2100 , the JSB instruction would perform a similar task, except that the return address was stored in the memory location that was the target of the branch. Execution of the procedure would actually begin at the next memory location. In the HP 2100 assembly language, one would write, for example to call
6290-442: The result to be used locally as a return value. A modification of the proxy object will also result in a corresponding modification of the remote object. Web APIs are the defined interfaces through which interactions happen between an enterprise and applications that use its assets, which also is a Service Level Agreement (SLA) to specify the functional provider and expose the service path or URL for its API users. An API approach
6375-415: The return address in a stack addressed by an accumulator or index register. The later PDP-10 (1966), PDP-11 (1970) and VAX-11 (1976) lines followed suit; this feature also supports both arbitrarily deep subroutine nesting and recursive subroutines. In the very early assemblers, subroutine support was limited. Subroutines were not explicitly separated from each other or from the main program, and indeed
6460-516: The return value. For example, a square root callable unit might be called like y = sqrt(x) . A callable unit that does not return a value is called as a stand-alone statement like print("hello") . This syntax can also be used for a callable unit that returns a value, but the return value will be ignored. Some older languages require a keyword for calls that do not consume a return value, like CALL print("hello") . Most implementations, especially in modern languages, support parameters which
6545-452: The similar OpenJDK project. Judge William Alsup ruled in the Oracle v. Google case that APIs cannot be copyrighted in the U.S. and that a victory for Oracle would have widely expanded copyright protection to a "functional set of symbols" and allowed the copyrighting of simple software commands: To accept Oracle's claim would be to allow anyone to copyright one version of code to carry out
6630-420: The source code of a subroutine could be interspersed with that of other subprograms. Some assemblers would offer predefined macros to generate the call and return sequences. By the 1960s, assemblers usually had much more sophisticated support for both inline and separately assembled subroutines that could be linked together. One of the first programming languages to support user-written subroutines and functions
6715-634: The special instructions used for procedure calls have changed greatly over the years. The earliest computers and microprocessors, such as the Manchester Baby and the RCA 1802 , did not have a single subroutine call instruction. Subroutines could be implemented, but they required programmers to use the call sequence—a series of instructions—at each call site . Subroutines were implemented in Konrad Zuse 's Z4 in 1945. In 1945, Alan M. Turing used
6800-457: The stack contains only the private data of the calls that are currently active (namely, which have been called but haven't returned yet). Because of the ways in which programs were usually assembled from libraries, it was (and still is) not uncommon to find programs that include thousands of functions, of which only a handful are active at any given moment. For such programs, the call stack mechanism could save significant amounts of memory. Indeed,
6885-482: The terms "bury" and "unbury" as a means of calling and returning from subroutines. In January 1947 John Mauchly presented general notes at 'A Symposium of Large Scale Digital Calculating Machinery' under the joint sponsorship of Harvard University and the Bureau of Ordnance, United States Navy. Here he discusses serial and parallel operation suggesting ...the structure of the machine need not be complicated one bit. It
6970-446: Was FORTRAN II . The IBM FORTRAN II compiler was released in 1958. ALGOL 58 and other early programming languages also supported procedural programming. Even with this cumbersome approach, subroutines proved very useful. They allowed the use of the same code in many different programs. Memory was a very scarce resource on early computers, and subroutines allowed significant savings in the size of programs. Many early computers loaded
7055-455: Was defined simply as "a set of services available to a programmer for performing certain tasks" by technologist Carl Malamud . The idea of the API was expanded again with the dawn of remote procedure calls and web APIs . As computer networks became common in the 1970s and 80s, programmers wanted to call libraries located not only on their local computers, but on computers located elsewhere. These remote procedure calls were well supported by
7140-475: Was determined that deprecation was a mistake because substantial scenarios within SQL Server still depend on OLE DB and changing those would break some existing customer scenarios. On Oct 6, 2017 Microsoft announced that OLE DB was undeprecated, and a new version to maintain dependencies would be released in early 2018. An OLE DB provider is a software component that enables an OLE DB consumer to interact with
7225-529: Was programming during World War II. She and the other ENIAC programmers used the subroutines to help calculate missile trajectories. Goldstine and von Neumann wrote a paper dated 16 August 1948 discussing the use of subroutines. Some very early computers and microprocessors, such as the IBM 1620 , the Intel 4004 and Intel 8008 , and the PIC microcontrollers , have a single-instruction subroutine call that uses
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