A programming language initially developed for teaching programming by [Niklaus Wirth] at ETH Zürich. Pascal is a procedural language, similar to C. Descendents include: [Delphi], Modula 2, [Oberon]. See http://www.xploiter.com/mirrors/pascal/default.htm for a self paced learning module on pascal programming. ''pascal'' on the Tcl'ers Chat is [Pascal Scheffers] ---- [Category Language] ---- The language was named in honor to the French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal, who is also known for the Pascal Triangle. Here's Tcl code that produces the next row, given one row: proc pascal {{lastrow ""}} { set res 1 foreach a [lrange $lastrow 1 end] b $lastrow { lappend res [expr $a+$b] } set res } ;# RS % pascal 1 %pascal 1 1 1 % pascal {1 1} 1 2 1 % pascal {1 2 1} 1 3 3 1 % pascal {1 3 3 1} 1 4 6 4 1 Note that in the last [foreach] step, a is "" (because the shorter list has ended). [expr] evaluates the string +1, which returns the final 1. But the expression must not be braced, otherwise it would raise an error by [expr]'s parser, which would not take "" for a summand... [KBK]: The numbers in Pascal's triangle are, of course, the [binomial coefficients]. [Tcllib] has a robust ''::math::combinatorics::choose'' procedure for computing them, even for large and fractional arguments. [AM] See also: [Pascal's triangle] - as it deserves its own page :)