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{{Short description|Programming language}}
{{Distinguish|Chill (disambiguation)}}

{{Infobox programming language
| name = CHILL
| logo =
| paradigm = [[procedural language|procedural]]
| year = 1980
| designer = [[ITU-T|CCITT]]
| developer =
| latest release version = 3.0?
| latest release date = {{start date and age|2003}}
| typing = [[static typing|static]], [[strong typing|strong]]
| implementations =
| dialects = Object CHILL
| influenced by = [[COBOL]], [[PL/1]]
| influenced =
| operating system = [[telecommunication]] switches
| license =
| website =
| file ext =
}}

'''CHILL''' (an acronym for '''[[ITU-T|CCITT]] [[High Level Language]]''') is a [[procedural language|procedural]] [[programming language]] designed for use in [[telecommunication]] switches (the hardware used inside telephone exchanges). The language is still used for [[legacy system]]s in some telecommunication companies and for  [[signal box]] programming<ref>{{cite thesis |author =  Gard Paulsen |title = Betwixt and between: Software in telecommunications and the programming language Chill, 1974 - 1999 |publisher = BI Norwegian Business School |date = 2011 |url = https://biopen.bi.no/bi-xmlui/handle/11250/94362 |isbn = 978-82-8247-031-5 |access-date = 2025-11-11  }}</ref>.

The CHILL language is similar in size and complexity to the original [[Ada (programming language)|Ada]] language. The first specification of the CHILL language was published in 1980, a few years before Ada.

[[ITU-T|ITU]] provides a standard CHILL compiler.
A free CHILL compiler was bundled with [[GNU Compiler Collection|GCC]] up to version 2.95: however, it was removed from later versions. An [[object-oriented programming|object-oriented]] version, called Object CHILL, was developed also.<ref>{{cite conference |author = Jürgen F. H. Winkler  |author2=Georg Dießl |title = Object CHILL—an object oriented language for systems implementation |book-title = Proceedings of the 1992 ACM annual conference on Communications |pages = 139–147 |publisher = [[Association for Computing Machinery]] |date = 1992 |location = Kansas City, Missouri, USA |url = http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=131232 |doi = 10.1145/131214.131232 |isbn = 0-89791-472-4 |access-date = 2008-12-30|doi-access = free }}</ref>

[[ITU-T|ITU]] is responsible for the CHILL standard, known as ITU-T Rec. Z.200. The equivalent [[International Organization for Standardization|ISO]] standard is ISO/IEC 9496:2003. (The text of the two documents is the same). In late 1999 CCITT stopped maintaining the CHILL standard.

CHILL was used in systems of Alcatel System 12 and Siemens [[EWSD]], for example.

== See also ==
* [[PLEX (programming language)|PLEX]] - Programming Language for Exchanges
* [[Erlang (programming language)|Erlang]] - language from Ericsson originally designed for telecommunication switches

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-Z.200/en ITU Z.200 standard page], has freely downloadable CHILL spec
* [http://psc.informatik.uni-jena.de/languages/chill/chill.htm The CHILL Homepage]
* [https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-2.95.3/chill.html Documentation for GNU CHILL]

{{ISO standards}}
{{List of International Electrotechnical Commission standards}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Procedural programming languages]]
[[Category:ITU-T recommendations]]
[[Category:Legacy systems]]
[[Category:Programming languages created in 1980]]
[[Category:Programming languages with an ISO standard]]