Proteus

Proteus (PROcessor for TExt Easy to USe) is a fully functional, procedural programming language created in 1998 by Simone Zanella. Proteus incorporates many functions derived from several other languages: C, BASIC, Assembly, Clipper/dBase; it is especially versatile in dealing with strings, having hundreds of dedicated functions; this makes it one of the richest languages for text manipulation. Proteus owes its name to a Greek god of the sea (Proteus), who took care of Neptune's crowd and gave responses; he was renowned for being able to transform himself, assuming different shapes. Transforming data from one form to another is the main usage of this language. Introduction Proteus was initially created as a multiplatform (DOS, Windows, Unix) system utility, to manipulate text and binary files and to create CGI scripts. The language was later focused on Windows, by adding hundreds of specialized functions for: network and serial communication, database interrogation, system service creation, console applications, keyboard emulation, ISAPI scripting (for IIS). Most of these additional functions are only available in the Windows flavour of the interpreter, even though a Linux version is still available. Proteus was designed to be practical (easy to use, efficient, complete), readable and consistent.