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{{Short description|International programming language consortium}}
{{Distinguish|Codicil (disambiguation){{!}}Codicil}}
 
'''CODASYL''' ('''Conference/Committee on Data Systems Languages''') was a [[consortium]] formed in 1959 to guide the development of a standard [[programming language]] that could be used on many [[computer]]s. This effort led to the development of the programming language [[COBOL]], the CODASYL Data Model, and other [[technical standard]]s.

CODASYL's [[Partnership|members]] were individuals from [[Computer industry|industry]] and government involved in [[Data processing|data processing activity]].  Its larger goal was to promote more effective data [[systems analysis]], design, and [[Computer programming|implementation]].  The organization published [[Specification (technical standard)|specifications]] for various languages over the years, handing these over to official standards bodies ([[International Organization for Standardization|ISO]], [[American National Standards Institute|ANSI]], or their predecessors) for formal [[standardization]].

CODASYL is remembered almost entirely for two activities: its work on the development of the [[COBOL]] language and its activities in standardizing [[database]] interfaces. It also worked on a wide range of other topics, including [[User interface|end-user form interfaces]] and [[operating system]] control languages, but these projects had little lasting impact.

== History ==
{{More citations needed section|date=May 2023}}

In the late 1950s, computer users and manufacturers were becoming concerned about the rising cost of programming. A 1959 survey had found that in any data processing installation, the programming cost US$800,000 on average and that translating programs to run on new hardware would cost US$600,000. At a time when new [[Timeline of programming languages|programming languages were proliferating]], the same survey suggested that if a common business-oriented language were used, conversion would be far cheaper and faster.{{sfn|Beyer|2009|p=282}}

On 8 April 1959, [[Mary K. Hawes]], a computer scientist at [[Burroughs Corporation]], called a meeting of representatives from academia, computer users, and manufacturers at the [[University of Pennsylvania]] to organize a formal meeting on common business languages.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Gürer|first=Denise|date=1 June 2002|title=Pioneering Women in Computer Science|journal=SIGCSE Bull.|volume=34|issue=2|pages=175–180 |doi=10.1145/543812.543853 |s2cid=2577644|issn=0097-8418}}</ref> Representatives included [[Grace Hopper]] (inventor of the English-like data processing language [[FLOW-MATIC]]), [[Jean Sammet]], and [[Saul Gorn]].{{sfn|Beyer|2009|pp=281–282}}{{sfn|Sammet|1978a|p=200}}

At the April meeting, the group asked the [[United States Department of Defense|Department of Defense]] (DoD) to sponsor an effort to create a common business language. The delegation impressed Charles A. Phillips, director of the Data System Research Staff at the DoD,<ref name = "Flahive, Texas Public Radio, 2019" >{{ cite web | url = https://www.tpr.org/post/how-cobol-still-powers-global-economy-60-years-old | title = How COBOL Still Powers The Global Economy At 60 Years Old | access-date = 19 July 2019 | first = Paul | last = Flahive | date = 24 May 2019 | website = [[Texas Public Radio]] | quote = (Grace Hopper) Nicknamed Grandma Cobol, the code was based on some of her earlier work. She said — after hearing the rumors — one of her collaborators went out and bought a granite tombstone. "He had the word COBOL cut in the front of it. Then he shipped it express collect to Mr. Phillips in the pentagon." The prank on Charles Phillips, a leader for the project at the defense department, got the attention of the powers that be and was a turning point she said. COBOL would go on to become the most widely used and longest lasting computer languages in history. | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190524035248/https://www.tpr.org/post/how-cobol-still-powers-global-economy-60-years-old | archive-date = 24 May 2019 | df = dmy-all }}</ref> who thought that they "thoroughly understood" the DoD's problems. The DoD operated 225 computers, had 175 more on order, and had spent over $200 million on implementing programs to run on them. Portable programs would save time, reduce costs, and ease modernization.{{sfn|Beyer|2009|p=283}}

Charles Phillips agreed to sponsor the meeting, and tasked the delegation with drafting the agenda.{{sfn|Beyer|2009|p=284}}

=== COBOL ===
{{main|COBOL#History and specification}}

On 28 and 29 May 1959, a meeting was held at [[the Pentagon]] to discuss the creation of a common programming language for business (exactly one year after the Zürich [[ALGOL 58]] meeting). It was attended by 41 people and was chaired by Phillips.<ref>{{Cite journal | doi = 10.1109/MAHC.1985.10047| title = Early Meetings of the Conference on Data Systems Languages| journal = IEEE Annals of the History of Computing| volume = 7| issue = 4| pages = 316–325| year = 1985 | s2cid = 35625728}}</ref> The Department of Defense was concerned about whether it could run the same data processing programs on different computers. [[FORTRAN]], the only mainstream language at the time, lacked the features needed to write such programs.{{sfn|Sammet|2004|p=104}}

Representatives enthusiastically described a language that could work in a wide variety of environments, from banking and insurance to utilities and inventory control. They agreed unanimously that more people should be able to program, and that the new language should not be restricted by the limitations of contemporary technology. A majority agreed that the language should make maximal use of English, be capable of change, be machine-independent, and be easy to use, even at the expense of power.{{sfn|Beyer|2009|p=286}}

The meeting resulted in the creation of a [[steering committee]] and short, intermediate, and long-range committees. The short-range committee was given until September (three months) to produce specifications for an interim language, which would then be improved upon by the other committees.{{sfn|Conner|1984|p=ID/9}}{{sfn|Sammet|1978a|p=201}} Their official mission, however, was to identify the strengths and weaknesses of existing programming languages; it did not explicitly direct them to create a new language.{{sfn|Sammet|2004|p=104}}

The deadline was met with disbelief by the short-range committee.{{sfn|Bemer|1971|p=132}} One member, [[Betty Holberton]], described the three-month deadline as "gross optimism" and doubted that the language really would be a stopgap.{{sfn|Beyer|2009|p=288}} The steering committee met on 4 June and agreed to name the entire activity the ''Committee on Data Systems Languages'', or [[CODASYL]], and to form an executive committee.{{sfn|Sammet|1978a|p=203}}

The short-range committee members represented six computer manufacturers and three government agencies. The computer manufacturers were [[Burroughs Corporation]], [[IBM]], [[Honeywell|Minneapolis-Honeywell]] (Honeywell Labs), [[RCA Corporation|RCA]], [[Sperry Rand]], and [[Sylvania Electric Products]]. The government agencies were the [[US Air Force|U.S. Air Force]], the Navy's [[David Taylor Model Basin]], and the [[National Bureau of Standards]] (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology).{{sfn|CODASYL|1969|loc=§ I.2.1.1}} The committee was chaired by [[Joseph Wegstein]] of the U.S. National Bureau of Standards. Work began by investigating data descriptions, statements, existing applications, and user experiences.{{sfn|Sammet|1978a|p=204}}

The committee mainly examined the [[FLOW-MATIC]], [[AIMACO]], and [[COMTRAN]] programming languages.{{sfn|Sammet|2004|p=104}}{{sfn|CODASYL|1969|loc=§ I.1.2}} The FLOW-MATIC language was particularly influential because it had been implemented and because AIMACO was a derivative of it with only minor changes.{{sfn|Beyer|2009|p=290}}<ref name=cisn>{{cite journal | last = Sammet | first = Jean | author-link = Jean Sammet | title = The Early History of COBOL | journal = ACM SIGPLAN Notices | volume = 13 | issue = 8 | pages = 121–161 | year = 1978 | doi =10.1145/960118.808378 | s2cid = 10743643 }}</ref> FLOW-MATIC's inventor, Grace Hopper, also served as a technical adviser to the committee.{{sfn|Bemer|1971|p=132}} FLOW-MATIC's major contributions to COBOL were long variable names, English words for commands, and the separation of data descriptions and instructions.{{sfn|Sammet|1978a|p=217}} Hopper is sometimes called "the mother of COBOL" or "the grandmother of COBOL",<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Adams|first=Vicki Porter|date=5 October 1981|title=Captain Grace M. Hopper: the Mother of COBOL |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JT0EAAAAMBAJ&pg=RA1-PA33|magazine=InfoWorld|volume=3|issue=20|page=33 |issn=0199-6649}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Betts|first=Mitch|date=6 January 1992|title=Grace Hopper, mother of Cobol, dies|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J-_T3bxgvMwC&pg=PA14|journal=Computerworld |volume=26|issue=1|page=14}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Lohr|first=Steve|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XfPLVx6qS_cC&pg=PA52|title=Go To: The Story of the Math Majors, Bridge Players, Engineers, Chess Wizards, Maverick Scientists, and Iconoclasts—The Programmers Who Created the Software Revolution|publisher=[[Basic Books]]|year=2008|isbn=978-0786730766|page=52}}</ref> although [[Jean Sammet]], a lead designer of COBOL, said Hopper "was not the mother, creator, or developer of Cobol."<ref>{{Cite news | url=https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/pioneering-software-engineer-and-cobol-co-designer-1.3111332 |title=Pioneering software engineer and Cobol co-designer|newspaper=[[The Irish Times]] }}</ref><ref name="creators">{{Cite journal |last=Sammet|first=Jean E.|date=March 2000|title=The real creators of Cobol|journal=IEEE Software |volume=17|issue=2|pages=30–32|doi=10.1109/52.841602 |bibcode=2000ISoft..17b..30S |issn=1937-4194|quote=The Short-Range Committee worked diligently from June 1959 on, but there were great difficulties in having a fairly large committee try to create a programming language. In November, the Short-Range Committee chair appointed six people to develop specifications for consideration: William Selden and Gertrude Tierney (IBM), Howard Bromberg and Norman Discount (RCA), and Vernon Reeves and Jean E. Sammet (Sylvania Electric Products). We worked for two full weeks (including some round-the-clock sessions) in November 1959 and sent the proposed specifications to the full Short-Range Committee, which accepted almost all of them. After some editing (by the same six people), we turned in the specifications as a final report in December to the Executive Committee, which accepted them in January 1960. After some further editing, the Government Printing Office issued Cobol 60. [...] [Grace Hopper] did not participate in its work except through the general guidance she gave to her staff who were direct committee members. Thus, while her indirect influence was very important, regrettably the frequent repeated statements that "Grace Hopper developed Cobol" or "Grace Hopper was a codeveloper of Cobol" or "Grace Hopper is the mother of Cobol" are just not correct.}}</ref>

IBM's COMTRAN language, invented by [[Bob Bemer]], was regarded as a competitor to FLOW-MATIC{{sfn|Beyer|2009|p=292}}{{sfn|Bemer|1971|p=131}} by a short-range committee made up of colleagues of Grace Hopper.{{sfn|Beyer|2009|p=296}} Some of its features were not incorporated into COBOL so that it would not look like IBM had dominated the design process,{{sfn|Conner|1984|p=ID/9}} and Jean Sammet said in 1981 that there had been a "strong anti-IBM bias" from some committee members (herself included).{{sfn|Sammet|1978a|p=221}} In one case, after Roy Goldfinger, author of the COMTRAN manual and intermediate-range committee member, attended a subcommittee meeting to support his language and encourage the use of algebraic expressions, Grace Hopper sent a memo to the short-range committee reiterating Sperry Rand's efforts to create a language based on English.{{sfn|Beyer|2009|p=291}}

In 1980, Grace Hopper commented that "COBOL 60 is 95% FLOW-MATIC" and that COMTRAN had had an "extremely small" influence. Furthermore, she said that she would claim that work was influenced by both FLOW-MATIC and COMTRAN only to "keep other people happy [so they] wouldn't try to knock us out.".<ref name="Hopper Oral History">{{cite web | url=http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Oral_History/Hopper_Grace/102702026.05.01.pdf | title=Oral History of Captain Grace Hopper | publisher=[[Computer History Museum]] | date=December 1980 | access-date=28 June 2014 | page=37 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171225202555/http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Oral_History/Hopper_Grace/102702026.05.01.pdf | archive-date=25 December 2017 | url-status=dead }}</ref>

Features from COMTRAN incorporated into COBOL included formulas,{{sfn|Sammet|1978a|p=218}} the [[#PICTURE clause|{{code|PICTURE}} clause]],{{sfn|Marcotty|1978a|p=268}} an improved <code>IF</code> statement which obviated the need for [[GO TO]]s, and a more robust file management system.{{sfn|Beyer|2009|p=292}}

The usefulness of the committee's work was a subject of great debate. While some members thought the language had too many compromises and was the result of [[design by committee]], others felt it was better than the three languages examined. Some felt the language was too complex; others, too simple.{{sfn|Sammet|1978a|pp=205–206}}

Controversial features included those some considered useless or too advanced for data processing users. Such features included [[Boolean expression]]s, [[formula]]s, and table ''{{dfn|subscripts}}'' (indices).{{sfn|Sammet|1978a|loc=Figure 8}}{{sfn|Sammet|1978a|pp=230–231}} Another point of controversy was whether to make keywords context-sensitive and the effect that would have on readability.{{sfn|Sammet|1978a|loc=Figure 8}} Although context-sensitive keywords were rejected, the approach was later used in [[PL/I]] and partially in COBOL from 2002.{{sfn|ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/WG 4|2001|p=846}} Little consideration was given to [[interactivity]], interaction with [[operating system]]s (few existed at that time), and functions (thought of as purely mathematical and of no use in data processing).{{sfn|Sammet|1978a|p=220}}{{sfn|Sammet|1978a|p=228}}

The specifications were presented to the executive committee on 4 September. They fell short of expectations: Joseph Wegstein noted that "it contains rough spots and requires some additions," and Bob Bemer later described them as a "hodgepodge." The committee was given until December to improve it.{{sfn|Bemer|1971|p=132}}

At a mid-September meeting, the committee discussed the new language's name. Suggestions included "BUSY" (Business System), "INFOSYL" (Information System Language), and "COCOSYL" (Common Computer Systems Language).{{sfn|Sammet|1978a|p=210}} It is unclear who coined the name "COBOL",{{sfn|Bemer|1971|p=132: ''We can't find a single individual who admits coining the acronym "COBOL"''}}{{sfn|Sammet|1978a|p=210: ''The next day, the name COBOL was finally agreed to as an acronym for COmmon Business Oriented Language. Unfortunately, my notes do not show who made that suggestion''}} although Bob Bemer later claimed it had been his suggestion.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4138-2004Jun24.html | title=Computer Pioneer Bob Bemer, 84 | newspaper=The Washington Post | date=25 June 2004 | access-date=28 June 2014 | page=B06 | first=Patricia | last=Sullivan}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bobbemer.com/arranga.htm|title=THE COBOL REPORT - Interview with Bob Bemer - the Father of COBOL|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180402200259/http://www.bobbemer.com/arranga.htm|archive-date=2 April 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://cobolreport.com/cobolreport/archives/TCR_bemer.htm|title=THE COBOL REPORT - Interview with Bob Bemer - the Father of COBOL|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20031223115509/http://cobolreport.com/cobolreport/archives/TCR_bemer.htm|archive-date=23 December 2003}}</ref>

In October, the intermediate-range committee received copies of the [[FACT (computer language)|FACT]] language specification created by [[Roy Nutt]]. Its features impressed the committee so much that they passed a resolution to base COBOL on it.{{sfn|Beyer|2009|p=293}}

This was a blow to the short-range committee, who had made good progress on the specification. Despite being technically superior, FACT had not been created with portability in mind or through manufacturer and user consensus. It also lacked a demonstrable implementation,{{sfn|Bemer|1971|p=132}} allowing supporters of a FLOW-MATIC-based COBOL to overturn the resolution. RCA representative Howard Bromberg also blocked FACT, so that RCA's work on a COBOL implementation would not go to waste.{{sfn|Beyer|2009|p=294}}

It soon became apparent that the committee was too large to make any further progress quickly. A frustrated Howard Bromberg bought a $15 tombstone (in 1959; equivalent to roughly ${{Inflation|US|15|1959|r=-1}} now){{Inflation-fn|US}} with "COBOL" engraved on it and sent it to Charles Phillips to demonstrate his displeasure.{{efn|The tombstone is currently at the [[Computer History Museum]].<ref>{{cite book | title=COBOL Tombstone | year=1960 | url=http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/X572.85 | publisher=Computer History Museum | access-date=29 June 2014}}</ref>}}<ref name="Tombstone story">{{cite journal | url=http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/TCMR-V13.pdf | title=The Story of the COBOL Tombstone | journal=The Computer Museum Report | date=Summer 1985 | access-date=29 June 2014 | volume=13 | pages=8–9 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140403015336/http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/TCMR-V13.pdf | archive-date=3 April 2014 | url-status=live }}</ref>{{sfn|Bemer|1971|p=130}}

A subcommittee was formed to analyze existing languages and was made up of six individuals:{{sfn|Sammet|2004|p=104}}{{sfn|Beyer|2009|p=289}}

* William Selden and Gertrude Tierney of IBM,
* Howard Bromberg and Howard Discount of RCA,
* Vernon Reeves and [[Jean E. Sammet]] of Sylvania Electric Products.

The subcommittee did most of the work creating the specification, leaving the short-range committee to review and modify their work before producing the finished specification.{{sfn|Sammet|2004|p=104}}

The specifications were approved by the executive committee on 8 January 1960, and sent to the government printing office, which printed them as ''COBOL 60''. The language's stated objectives were to allow efficient, portable programs to be easily written, to allow users to move to new systems with minimal effort and cost, and to be suitable for inexperienced programmers.{{sfn|CODASYL|1969|loc=§ I.1.1}}

The CODASYL Executive Committee later created the COBOL Maintenance Committee to answer questions from users and vendors and to improve and expand the specifications.{{sfn|Brown|1976|p=47}}

During 1960, the list of manufacturers planning to build COBOL compilers grew. By September, five more manufacturers had joined CODASYL ([[Bendix Corporation|Bendix]], [[Control Data Corporation]], [[General Electric]] (GE), [[National Cash Register]], and [[Philco]]), and all represented manufacturers had announced COBOL compilers. GE and IBM planned to integrate COBOL into their own languages, GECOM and COMTRAN, respectively. In contrast, [[International Computers and Tabulators]] planned to replace their language, CODEL, with COBOL.{{sfn|Bemer|1971|p=133}}

Meanwhile, RCA and Sperry Rand worked on creating COBOL compilers. The first COBOL program ran on 17 August on an RCA 501.{{sfn|Beyer|2009|p=297}} On 6 and 7 December, the same COBOL program (albeit with minor changes) ran on an RCA computer and a Remington-Rand [[Univac]] computer, demonstrating that compatibility could be achieved.<ref name="Williams12">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KKmiw-_2gYIC&pg=PT124 | title=Grace Hopper: Admiral of the Cyber Sea | publisher=US Naval Institute Press | isbn=978-1612512655 | date=10 November 2012 | last=Williams | first=Kathleen Broome | oclc=818867202}}</ref>

The relative influence of the languages that were used is still indicated in the recommended advisory printed in all COBOL reference manuals:
{{blockquote|COBOL is an industry language and is not the property of any company or group of companies, or of any organization or group of organizations.
No warranty, expressed or implied, is made by any contributor or by the CODASYL COBOL Committee as to the accuracy and functioning of the
programming system and language. Moreover, no responsibility is assumed by any contributor or by the committee in connection therewith. The authors and copyright holders of the copyrighted material used herein are as follows:

{{quote|style=font-size: inherit|FLOW-MATIC (trademark of [[Unisys Corporation]]), Programming for the UNIVAC (R) I and II, Data Automation Systems, copyrighted 1958, 1959, by Unisys Corporation; IBM Commercial Translator Form No. F28-8013, copyrighted 1959 by IBM; FACT, DSI 27A5260-2760, copyrighted 1960 by Minneapolis-Honeywell.}}

They have specifically authorized the use of this material, in whole or in part, in the COBOL specifications. Such authorization extends to the reproduction and use of COBOL specifications in programming manuals or similar publications.<ref>Compaq Computer Corporation: ''Compaq COBOL Reference Manual'', Order Number: AA–Q2G0F–TK October 2000, Page xviii; Fujitsu Corporation: ''Net Cobol Language Reference'', Version 15, January 2009; IBM Corporation: ''Enterprise COBOL for z/OS Language Reference'', Version 4 Release 1, SC23-8528-00, December 2007</ref>}}
=== database activities ===

In 1965 CODASYL formed a List Processing Task Force. This group was chartered to develop COBOL language extensions for processing collections of records; the name arose because [[Charles Bachman]]'s [[Integrated Data Store|IDS]] system (which was the main technical input to the project) managed relationships between records using chains of pointers. In 1967 the group renamed itself the [[Data Base Task Group]] (DBTG), and its first report in January 1968 was entitled ''COBOL extensions to handle data bases''.

[[File:CodasylB.png|thumb|360px|The "set", the basic structure of the CODASYL database model. A set consists of one owner record and n member records (these are labeled as "parent" and "child" in the diagram, but the CODASYL terminology is "owner" and "member"). In the above example, we were looking at a basic set which embodies a 1:N (Owner:Member) relationship.<ref>{{cite book |last = Waldner  |first = Jean-Baptiste  |authorlink = Jean-Baptiste Waldner  |title = CIM: Principles of Computer Integrated Manufacturing |publisher = [[John Wiley & Sons Ltd]] |place = Chichester|year = 1992| page = 47 |isbn = 0-471-93450-X}}</ref>]] In October 1969 the DBTG published its first language specifications for the [[network model|network database model]] which became generally known as the CODASYL Data Model. This specification in fact defined several separate languages: a [[data definition language]] (DDL) to define the [[logical schema|schema]] of the database, another DDL to create one or more subschemas defining application views of the database; and a [[data manipulation language]] (DML) defining verbs for embedding in the COBOL programming language to request and update data in the database. Although the work was focused on COBOL, the idea of a host-language independent database was starting to emerge, prompted by [[IBM]]'s advocacy of [[PL/I]] as a COBOL replacement.

In 1971, largely in response to the need for programming language independence, the work was reorganized: development of the Data Description Language was continued by the [[Data Description Language Committee]], while the COBOL DML was taken over by the COBOL language committee. With hindsight, this split had unfortunate consequences. The two groups never quite managed to synchronize their specifications, leaving vendors to patch up the differences. The inevitable consequence was a lack of interoperability among implementations.

A number of vendors implemented database products conforming (roughly) to the DBTG specifications: the best-known implementations were [[Honeywell]]'s&mdash;originally [[General Electric]]'s&mdash;Integrated Data Store (IDS/2), HP's [[IMAGE (database)|IMAGE]], Cullinet's Integrated Database Management System [[IDMS]], [[International Computers Limited|ICL's]] 2900 IDMS (derived from Cullinet's product), [[Univac]]'s DMS-1100, and [[Digital Equipment Corporation]]'s DBMS for [[OpenVMS|VMS]] (later known as [[Oracle (corporation)|Oracle]] Codasyl DBMS). [[Cullinet]], originally known as Cullinane Database Systems, obtained the technology from [[Goodrich Corporation|B.F. Goodrich]].  Cullinet was eventually sold to [[CA, Inc.|Computer Associates]], which as of 2007 still sells and supports a version of IDMS.

[[ANSI]] and [[International Organization for Standardization|ISO]] adopted the CODASYL database specifications under the name Network Database Language (NDL), with work taking place within the same working group (X3H2) as [[SQL]] standardization. An ISO standard for NDL was ratified as ISO 8907:1987,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=16434|title = Information processing system — Database languages — NDL|id=Iso 8907:1987}}</ref> but, as it never had any practical effect on implementations, it was formally withdrawn in 1998.

Some of the CODASYL committees continue their work today, but CODASYL itself no longer exists.  The records of CODASYL were donated to the [[Charles Babbage Institute]].<ref>See a finding guide to [http://purl.umn.edu/40644 Conference on Data Systems Languages Records, 1959-1987]. [[Charles Babbage Institute]], University of Minnesota</ref>  CBI also hold the archival records for American National Standards Institute [http://purl.umn.edu/40837 X3H2 records].

Interest in CODASYL gradually faded due to growing interest in [[relational database]]s beginning in the early 1980s.

==See also==
{{Portal|Computer programming}}
* [[Navigational database]]
* [[T. William Olle]]

== Notes ==
{{Notelist}}

==References==

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Sources===
{{refbegin|2}}
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}}
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 | isbn=0127450408
 | doi=10.1145/800025.1198368
 | url-access=registration
 | url=https://archive.org/details/historyofprogram0000hist
 }}
{{refend}}

== Further reading ==
*''The Codasyl Approach to Data Base Management.'' [[T. William Olle]]. Wiley, 1978. {{ISBN|0-471-99579-7}}.
* The Codasyl Model. J. S. Knowles and D. M. R. Bell, in ''Databases - Role and Structure'', ed. P. M. Stocker, P. M. D. Gray, and M. P. Atkinson, CUP, 1984. {{ISBN|0-521-25430-2}}
* Joseph M. Hellerstein and Michael Stonebraker "Readings in Database Systems", The MIT Press 2005 Page 8, {{ISBN|0-262-69314-3}}, Library of Congress Control Number: 2004113624,

== External links ==
*[http://purl.umn.edu/40644 Conference on Data Systems Languages Records, 1959-1987 {CODASYL}]. [[Charles Babbage Institute]], University of Minnesota.  CODASYL was a volunteer organization consisting of individuals from industry and government involved in data-processing activity. The organization was formed in 1959 to guide the development of a standard programming language, which led to the development of [[COBOL]].  Collection contains minutes, correspondence, reports, documentation for COBOL, Nice Standard Control Language (NICOLA), the Journal of Development, and other publications from several CODASYL committees and task groups.
*[http://www.sqlsummit.com/PDF/DatabaseSurvey_CODASYL_1968.pdf Conference on Data Systems Languages {CODASYL} Survey Report, 1968]. "The CODASYL Systems Committee '''1968 Survey''' of Data Base Systems" lists several dozen database systems surveyed by the group that created the CODASYL database standard.
*[http://purl.umn.edu/40837 American National Standards Institute. X3H2 records, 1978-1995]. [[Charles Babbage Institute]], University of Minnesota.  The ANSI X3H2 Committee, formed May 1978, was originally charged with creating a standard for the CODASYL network data model. The resulting NDL (network database language) standard was finished in 1982. The committee work on standardizing the relational data model resulted in the [[SQL]] (structured query language) standard in 1984.
<!--*[http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/cis?q=CODASYL Citations from CiteSeer]-->

{{Query languages}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Codasyl}}
[[Category:COBOL]]
[[Category:Data modeling languages]]
[[Category:History of software]]