Editing Burroughs Large Systems (section)

===DMALGOL and databases===
Another variant of ALGOL is DMALGOL (Data Management ALGOL). DMALGOL is ALGOL extended for compiling the DMSII database software from database description files created by the DASDL (Data Access and Structure Definition Language) compiler. Database designers and administrators compile database descriptions to generate DMALGOL code tailored for the tables and indexes specified. Administrators never need to write DMALGOL themselves. Normal user-level programs obtain database access by using code written in application languages, mainly ALGOL and COBOL, extended with database instructions and transaction processing directives. The most notable feature of DMALGOL is its preprocessing mechanisms to generate code for handling tables and indices.

DMALGOL preprocessing includes variables and loops, and can generate names based on compile-time variables. This enables tailoring far beyond what can be done by preprocessing facilities which lack loops.

DMALGOL is used to provide tailored access routines for [[Unisys DMSII|DMSII]] databases. After a database is defined using the Data Access and Structure Definition Language (DASDL), the schema is translated by the preprocessor into tailored DMALGOL access routines and then compiled.
This means that, unlike in other DBMS implementations, there is often no need for database-specific if/then/else code at run-time. In the 1970s, this "tailoring" was used very extensively to reduce the code footprint and execution time. It became much less used in later years, partly because low-level fine tuning for memory and speed became less critical, and partly because eliminating the preprocessing made coding simpler and thus enabled more important optimizations. 

An applications version of ALGOL to support the accessing of databases from application programs is called BDMSALGOL and included verbs like "FIND", "LOCK", "STORE", "GET", and "PUT" for database access and record manipulation. Additionally, the verbs "BEGINTRANSACTION" and "ENDTRANSACTION" were also implemented to solve the deadlock situation when multiple processes accessed and updated the same structures.

Roy Guck of Burroughs was one of the main developers of [[Unisys DMSII|DMSII]].

In later years, with compiler code size being less of a concern, most of the preprocessing constructs were made available in the user level of ALGOL. Only the unsafe constructs and the direct processing of the database description file remain restricted to DMALGOL.