In
computer programming
Computer programming is the process of performing a particular computation (or more generally, accomplishing a specific computing result), usually by designing and building an executable computer program. Programming involves tasks such as ana ...
, a language construct is a
syntactically allowable part of a
program
Program, programme, programmer, or programming may refer to:
Business and management
* Program management, the process of managing several related projects
* Time management
* Program, a part of planning
Arts and entertainment Audio
* Progra ...
that may be formed from one or more
lexical token
In computer science, lexical analysis, lexing or tokenization is the process of converting a sequence of characters (such as in a computer program or web page) into a sequence of ''lexical tokens'' ( strings with an assigned and thus identified ...
s in accordance with the rules of the
programming language
A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language.
The description of a programming ...
.
The term "language construct" is often used as a synonym for control structure.
Control flow
In computer science, control flow (or flow of control) is the order in which individual statements, instructions or function calls of an imperative program are executed or evaluated. The emphasis on explicit control flow distinguishes an ''imper ...
statements (such as
conditionals
Conditional (if then) may refer to:
*Causal conditional, if X then Y, where X is a cause of Y
*Conditional probability, the probability of an event A given that another event B has occurred
*Conditional proof, in logic: a proof that asserts a co ...
,
foreach loop
In computer programming, foreach loop (or for each loop) is a control flow statement for traversing items in a collection. is usually used in place of a standard loop statement. Unlike other loop constructs, however, loops usually maintain ...
s,
while loop
In most computer programming languages, a while loop is a control flow statement that allows code to be executed repeatedly based on a given Boolean condition. The ''while'' loop can be thought of as a repeating if statement.
Overview
The ' ...
s, etc) are language constructs, not
function
Function or functionality may refer to:
Computing
* Function key, a type of key on computer keyboards
* Function model, a structured representation of processes in a system
* Function object or functor or functionoid, a concept of object-oriente ...
s. So
while (true) is a language construct, while
add(10) is a function call.
Examples of language constructs
In
PHP
PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group. ...
print is a language construct.
is the same as:
Programming constructs
In Java a
class
Class or The Class may refer to:
Common uses not otherwise categorized
* Class (biology), a taxonomic rank
* Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects
* Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used differentl ...
is written in this format:
public class MyClass
In C++ a class is written in this format:
class MyCPlusPlusClass ;
References
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