Natural
By Software AG
Natural is a fourth-generation programming language developed by Software AG for building business applications, most closely associated with mainframe environments and its companion database, Adabas. It combines a relatively high-level,…
Definition
Natural is a fourth-generation programming language developed by Software AG for building business applications, most closely associated with mainframe environments and its companion database, Adabas. It combines a relatively high-level, English-influenced syntax with tight integration to Adabas records, letting developers write data-processing logic, screen interactions, and reports with less boilerplate than an equivalent program in a third-generation language like COBOL.
Overview
Natural was designed as a fourth-generation language, meaning it aimed to let developers express what a program should accomplish with fewer lines of low-level detail than third-generation languages such as COBOL or PL/I required. It shipped alongside Software AG's Adabas database and was built to read and write Adabas records directly through concise statements, so common enterprise tasks such as retrieving a customer record, updating a field, and writing it back could be expressed compactly without hand-written file-handling boilerplate. Mechanically, a Natural program is organized into structured blocks for input, processing, and output, with statements that resemble constrained English phrases rather than symbolic operators. It supports both interactive, screen-based transaction programs, common on mainframes accessed through terminal sessions, and batch programs that process large volumes of records without a human at a terminal. Its integration with Adabas exposes the database's own indexing and search capabilities directly through language constructs, so a Natural program can issue a search against an Adabas file using syntax embedded in the language itself rather than through a separate query API. Among mainframe development languages, Natural sits alongside COBOL as a workhorse for enterprise transaction processing, but it targets faster development of database-centric business logic rather than the general-purpose, verbose, self-documenting style COBOL was designed around. It is not a general-systems language and was never intended to compete with C or Fortran for close-to-hardware programming; its scope stays within business data processing, reporting, and transaction handling, typically for organizations already running Adabas. In practice, Natural has been used for decades inside banks, insurers, government agencies, and other large organizations running IBM mainframes or compatible platforms, where it handles core transaction processing such as account updates, claims processing, and batch reporting jobs that run overnight against large datasets. Many of these systems have been continuously maintained and extended since the 1980s or 1990s, making Natural one of the longer-lived 4GLs still running production workloads rather than existing only as a historical curiosity. Its main limitations are ecosystem-related rather than purely technical: Natural developers and Adabas expertise are a shrinking specialist pool, tooling and community resources are far smaller than for mainstream languages, and organizations running Natural often face a difficult choice between continuing to maintain large legacy codebases or investing in a costly migration to modern platforms. Software AG has continued to invest in modernization tooling to let Natural applications interoperate with newer architectures, but new greenfield development in Natural is uncommon outside of organizations already deeply committed to the Adabas ecosystem.
Key Features
- Fourth-generation, English-influenced syntax aimed at concise business logic
- Deep native integration with the Adabas database for record access
- Support for both interactive terminal-based transactions and batch jobs
- Structured program blocks separating input, processing, and reporting logic
- Long-standing mainframe deployment on IBM and compatible platforms
- Modernization tooling from Software AG for integrating with newer systems
- Strong fit for high-volume, database-centric enterprise transaction processing
Use Cases
Alternatives
Frequently Asked Questions
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