3

Program Development

The required elemen ts for running a program are: Data space (for input, output, and computations)

Instructions (mac hine readable code and constan ts)

System routines (for example, input and output)

Program dev elopment is a term for taking a program design, on paper, to the poin t where it is machine readable and functions reliably .

Program componen ts are data and code. When a program is running, instructions and data are fetched from main memory to the CPU; data ma y be stored back into main memory for later use. Code and data m ust be in main memory when required for execution. CPU registers keep track of the location of suc h information as:

Next instruction to execute

Program status

Data calculations

The major steps for dev eloping a program are:

1.Writing: design the program and en ter the source code in a text ￿le.

2.Compiling: translate source code to mac hine readable instructions.

3.Linking: bind all resources necessary for the program's code to run the program.

4.Run: execute the program.

These steps are described in detail in the subsections belo w. Figure 3-1 shows a summary of these steps.

Figure 3-1. MPE/iX Program Development

Program Development 3-1