Programming language

Language for communicating instructions to a machine / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs.[1] Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language.

C_Hello_World_Program.png
The source code for a simple computer program written in the C programming language. The gray lines are comments that help explain the program to humans in a natural language. When compiled and run, it will give the output "Hello, world!".

The description of a programming language is usually split into the two components of syntax (form) and semantics (meaning), which are usually defined by a formal language. Some languages are defined by a specification document (for example, the C programming language is specified by an ISO Standard) while other languages (such as Perl) have a dominant implementation that is treated as a reference. Some languages have both, with the basic language defined by a standard and extensions taken from the dominant implementation being common.

Programming language theory is the subfield of computer science that studies the design, implementation, analysis, characterization, and classification of programming languages.