GT.M
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
GT.M is a high-performance database engine, optimized for transaction processing. GT.M is also an application development platform and a compiler for the ANSI/ISO standard M language, which was formerly known as MUMPS.
GT.M originally stood for Greystone Technology M and was developed by Greystone Technology Corp. It is an implementation of ANSI standard M for various UNIX systems and for Hewlett-Packard's OpenVMS system. In addition to preserving the traditional features of M, GT.M also offers an optimized compiler that produces object code that does not require internal interpreters during execution.
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[edit] GT.M vs other implementations of M
GT.M differs from other implementations of M in the following ways.
- Data and code are maintained in separate files
- The source code is compiled rather than interpreted
[edit] Working
GT.M compiles the M source code into the target machine language. These object files are dynamically linked into an image. GT.M databases are UNIX files identified by a file called Global directory. By changing the Global Directories, one can make the same program access different databases. Internally to these files, GT.M stores data in b-tree based multidimensional arrays (otherwise known as MUMPS globals, (similarly to most modern M implementations).
[edit] GT.M distributions
GT.M is currently available on the IBM RS/6000 AIX, HP Alpha/AXP, Tru64 Unix and OpenVMS, HP Series 9000 HP-UX, Sun SPARC Solaris and x86 GNU/Linux. GT.M is open source freeware licensed under the GPL on x86/Linux, HP Alpha/AXP, Tru64 Unix and HP Alpha/AXP OpenVMS.
Distributions for the IA64/HPUX and IA64/Linux platforms are currently under development.
[edit] Common applications
GT.M is predominantly used in healthcare and financial services industry.
[edit] History
According to the principal developer, K.S. Bhaskar, the first production use of GT.M was in 1986 at the Elvis Presley Memorial Trauma Center in Memphis, Tennessee.
