{{Short description|Syntactically valid part of a program formed from lexical tokens}} {{More sources|date=January 2021}}
In computer programming, a '''language construct''' is a syntactically allowable part of a program that may be formed from one or more lexical tokens in accordance with the rules of the programming language, as defined by in the ISO/IEC 2382 standard (ISO/IEC JTC 1).<ref name="ISO/IEC 2382">{{cite web |title=ISO/IEC 2382, Information technology — Vocabulary |url=https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso-iec:2382:ed-1:v1:en}}</ref> A '''term''' is defined as a "linguistic construct in a conceptual schema language that refers to an entity".<ref name="ISO/IEC 2382"/>
While the terms "language construct" and "control structure" are often used synonymously, there are additional types of logical constructs within a computer program, including variables, expressions, functions, or modules.
Control flow statements (such as conditionals, foreach loops, while loops, etc.) are language constructs, not functions. So <syntaxhighlight inline lang=php>while (true)</syntaxhighlight> is a language construct, while <syntaxhighlight inline lang=php>add(10)</syntaxhighlight> is a function call.
==Examples of language constructs== In PHP <syntaxhighlight inline lang=php>print</syntaxhighlight> is a language construct.<ref>{{Cite web |title=PHP: print - Manual |url=https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.print.php |access-date=2022-11-18 |website=www.php.net}}</ref> <syntaxhighlight lang="php"> <?php print 'Hello world'; ?> </syntaxhighlight>
is the same as:
<syntaxhighlight lang="php"> <?php print('Hello world'); ?> </syntaxhighlight>
In Java a class is written in this format:<syntaxhighlight lang="java"> public class MyClass { //Code . . . . . . } </syntaxhighlight>
In C++ a class is written in this format:<syntaxhighlight lang="c++"> class MyCPlusPlusClass { //Code . . . . }; </syntaxhighlight> ==References== {{reflist}}{{Compu-lang-stub}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Language Construct}} Category:Programming constructs