Re: First language with conditional assignment?

compilers@is-not-my.name wrote:


> Does anyone know what the earliest languages supporting conditional
> assignment were? Although the construct is useful I don't like the syntax in
> C-like languages. I am curious if there were earlier examples and what the
> syntax was.


ALGOL, I believe ALGOL 60 (I don't know the versions very well)
has the "conditional arithmetic expression" as:


      A := IF I<0 THEN R ELSE 3;


That is the example from Baumann, et. al, "Introduction
to ALGOL" from 1964, I believe describing ALGOL 60.
I don't know when it originated in ALGOL.


For my undergrad compiler class we used ALGOL, or DEC's
version of it, on the PDP-10, and I do remember using
some of conditional expressions.


(Note that the term "conditional assignment" might be used
to describe the C construct if(a) b=c; and that many RISC
architectures have a "conditional load" instruction that allows
doing conditional operations without branching.)


-- glen

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