COSC 2P05 – Programming languages

Assignments
• Symbol
– Most contemporary languages: =
– ALGOL 60, Ada: :=
• Fortran, Ada
– Assignment can only appear as a stand-alone statement with one
variable on the left-hand side.
• Conditional target (Perl):
($flag ? $count1 : $count2) = 0;
• Compound assignment
sum += value
• Unary assignment operators (C-based languages, Perl, JavaScript)
sum = ++count; sum = count++;
– Associativity
-count++ (-count)++

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• Assignment as an expression (C-based languages, Perl, JavaScript)

while (ch = getChar() != EOF) { … }
– Expression side-effect!
a = b + (c = d / b) – 1
– Multiple-target assignment
sum = count = 0
– C syntax hides errors
if (x = y) { … }
• List assignments, multiple-target assignments (Perl, Ruby, Lua)
($first, $second, $third) = (20, 40, 60);
($first, $second) = ($second, $first);

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Control Statements
Control statements alter the flow
•Early languages such as Fortran used GOTOs
•Two control statements necessary to implement any algorithm: selection
and iteration
•Design issue
– Does the control structure have multiple entries?
•Multiple exists
– Multiple exists in control structures correspond to GOTOs.

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Selection Statements
A selection statement provides the means of choosing between two or
more execution paths in a program.

• Two-Way Selection Statements

if control_expression
then clause
else clause
– Design issues:
•What is the form and type of the expression that controls the
selection?
•How are the then and else clauses specified?
•How should the meaning of nested selectors be specified?
– Control expression: Boolean data type vs arithmetic expression

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– Clause form
• Single statement or compound statement
• Perl: always compound statement
• Fortran 95, Ada, Python, Ruby: Clauses are statement sequences
terminated by a reserved word (Python uses indentation).
– Nesting selectors
<if_stmt> → if <logic_expr> then <stmt>
| if <logic_expr> then <stmt> else
<stmt>

if (sum == 0) if sum == 0 then

if (count == 0) if count == 0 then

result = 0; result = 0
else else
result = 1; result = 1
end
end
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• Multiple-Selection Constructs
– Design issues:
• What is the form and type of the expression that controls the
selection?
• How are the selectable segments specified?
• Is execution flow through the structure restricted to include just a
single selectable segment?
• How are the case values specified?
• How should unrepresented selector expression values be handled,
if at all?
– C-multiple-selector construct switch (C, C++, Java, JavaScript)
switch (expression) {
case constant_expression_1: statement_1;
. . .
case constant_n: statement_n;
[default: statement_n+1]
}
Use of break !

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– C# disallows the implicit execution of more than one segment; break

or goto case n.
– Ada
case
when Boolean_expression then expression
. . .
when Boolean_expression then expression
[else expression]
end
Subranges and choice lists; 10 | 15 | 20; allowed.

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Iterative Statements
An iterative statement is one that causes a statement or collection of
statements to be executed zero, one, or more times.

•Design issues:
– How is the iteration controlled?
– Where should the control mechanism appear in the loop
statement?
•Body of an iterative construct
•Pre-test vs Post-test

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• Counter-Controlled Loops
– Design issues:
• What are the type and scope of the loop variable?
• Should it be legal for the loop variable or loop parameters to be
changed in the loop, and if so, does the change affect loop
control?
• Should the loop parameters be evaluated only once, or once for
every iteration?
– For Statements of C-based languages
for (expression_1; expression_2; expression_3)
loop body
• All components are optional
• Equivalent to a while loop

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– For Statements of Ada

for variable in [ reverse ] discrete_range loop
...
end loop;
• A discrete range is a subrange of integer or an enumeration type.
• Implicit variable declaration with scope the loop body.
• Variable cannot be modified in the body.
– For Statements of Python
for loop_variable in object:
- loop body
[else:
- else clause]

for count in [2, 4, 6]:

print count
• Else clause is executed if the loops terminates normally.

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• Logically controlled loops.
– Design issues:
• Should the control be pretest or post-test?
• Should the logically controlled loop be a special form of a counting
loop or a separate statement?
– C-based languages
while (control_exp) do
loop body loop body
while (control_exp);
– User-located Loop Control Mechanism
• C,C++, Python, Ruby, and C# have an unconditional unlabeled exit
(break).
• Java and Pearl have an unconditional labeled exit (break):
outerLoop:
for (row = 0; row < numRows; row++)
for (col = 0; col < numCols; col++) {
sum += mat[row][col];
if (sum > 1000.0) break outerLoop;
}

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• C, C++, and Python include an unlabeled control statement,

continue.
while (sum < 1000) {
getnext(value);
if (value < 0) continue;
sum += value;
}
• Iteration based on Data Structures
– A general data-based iteration statement uses a user- defined data
structure and a user-defined function (the iterator) to go through the
structure’s elements.
– Using C’s For loop:
for (ptr = root; ptr == null; ptr = traverse(ptr)){
. . .
}
– Predefined iterators are used to provide iterative access to PHP’s
unique arrays.

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reset $list;
print ("First number: " + current($list) + "");
while ($current_value = next($list))
print ("Next number: " + $current_value + "<br \>");
–Java enhanced version of the for statement
for (String myElement : myList) { . . . }
–C# foreach loop
foreach (String name in names)
Console.WriteLine(name);

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Unconditional Branching
An unconditional branch statement , or goto, transfers execution control
to a specified location in the program.
•goto is the most powerful statement for controlling the flow of execution
of a program’s statements.
•Careless use of the goto can lead to serious problems.
•Without usage restrictions, imposed by either language design or
programming standards, goto statements can make programs very
difficult to read, and as a result, highly unreliable and costly to maintain.
•Java, Python, and Ruby do not have a goto statement.

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Guarded Commands
• Introduced by Dijkstra (1975)
• Basis for the linguistic mechanism developed later for concurrent
programming.

if <Boolean expression> -> <statement>

[] <Boolean expression> -> <statement>
[] . . .
[] <Boolean expression> -> <statement>
Fi

– All of the Boolean expressions are evaluated each time.

– If more than one expression is true, one of the corresponding
statements can be nondeterministically chosen for execution.

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