Things you find inside a computer program/algorithm

  • Consider the Euclid's Algorithm that we have learned:

       Repeat until (A == 0 or B == 0):        
       {
          if ( A > B )        
              replace A with the value (A - B)
          otherwise
              replace B with the value (B - A)   
       }
    
       if ( A is not equal to 0 )
          The Greatest Common Divisor = A 
       otherwise
          The Greatest Common Divisor = B 
      

You can see that the algorithm contains 2 types of things !!

Things you find inside a computer program/algorithm

  • (1) The computer algorithm/program contains commands a.k.a. statements:

       Repeat until (A == 0 or B == 0):         <--- Repetition statement 
       {
          if ( A > B )                          <--- Conditional statement
              replace A with the value (A - B)  <--- Assignment statement 
          otherwise
              replace B with the value (B - A)   
       }
    
       if ( A is not equal to 0 )
          The Greatest Common Divisor = A 
       otherwise
          The Greatest Common Divisor = B
      

Commands or "statements" tell the computer what operation it needs to perform/execute

Things you find inside a computer program/algorithm

  • (2) The computer algorithm/program contains (memory) variables:

       As long as neither number is equal to zero (0) do
       {
          if ( A > B )
              replace A with the value (A - B)
          otherwise
              replace B with the value (B - A)
       }
    
       if ( A > 0 )
          The Greatest Common Divisor is A
       otherwise
          The Greatest Common Divisor is B
      

Variables store the necessary information used by the statements of the computer algorithm

Program organization (packaging)

  • Statements and variables are organized in coherent units to help programmers manage their program code:

      • Statements and variables that are used to perform an important task is grouped together into one unit

  • The program unit used to package/contain statements and variables that perform an important task is called:

      • Function (in Python and C)         or         
      • Method (in Java)
      • Procedure
      • Subroutine

Some programming language may group multiple functions into larger units; e.g.: a class in Python !