GT.M

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.

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

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).

GT.M distributions

GT.M is currently available on the IBM RS/6000 AIX, HP Alpha/AXP, Tru64 UNIX and Open VMS, HP Series 9000 HP-UX, Sun SPARC Solaris and x86 GNU/Linux. GT.M is open-souce freeware licensed under the GPL on x86/Linux, HP Alpha/AXP, Tru64 UNIX and HP Alpha/AXP OpenVMS.

Common applications

GT.M is predominantly used in healthcare and financial services industry.

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.

External links