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This comparison of programming languages compares the features of language syntax (format) for over 50 computer programming languages.
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This comparison of programming languages compares the features of language syntax (format) for over 50 computer programming languages.
Programming language expressions can be broadly classified into four syntax structures:
(* (+ 2 3) (expt 4 5))(2 + 3) * (4 ** 5)2 3 + 4 5 ** *(2 + 3)(45) $$ note implicit multiply operatorWhen a programming languages has statements, they typically have conventions for:
A statement separator demarcates the boundary between two separate statements. A statement terminator defines the end of an individual statement. Languages that interpret the end of line to be the end of a statement are called "line-oriented" languages.
"Line continuation" is a convention in line-oriented languages where the newline character could potentially be misinterpreted as a statement terminator. In such languages, it allows a single statement to span more than just one line.
| Language | Statement separator-terminator | Secondary separator-terminator [1] |
|---|---|---|
| ABAP | period separated | |
| Ada | semicolon terminated | |
| ALGOL | semicolon separated | |
| ALGOL 68 | semicolon and comma separated [2] | |
| APL | newline terminated | [Direct_function ⋄] separated Secondary |
| AppleScript | newline terminated | |
| AutoHotkey | newline terminated | |
| BASIC | newline terminated | colon separated |
| Boo | newline terminated | |
| C | semicolon terminates statements | comma separates expressions |
| C++ | semicolon terminates statements | comma separates expressions |
| C# | semicolon terminated | |
| COBOL | whitespace separated, sometimes period separated, optionally separated with commas and semi-colons. | |
| Cobra | newline terminated | |
| CoffeeScript | newline terminated | |
| CSS | semicolon terminated | |
| D | semicolon terminated | |
| Eiffel | newline terminated | semicolon |
| Erlang | colon separated, period terminated | |
| F# | newline terminated | semicolon |
| Fortran | newline terminated | semicolon |
| Forth | semicolons terminate word definitions. space terminates word use | |
| GFA BASIC | newline terminated | |
| Go | semicolon separated (inserted by compiler) | |
| Haskell (in do-notation) | newline separated | |
| Haskell (in do-notation, when braces are used) | semicolon separated | |
| Java | semicolon terminated | |
| JavaScript | semicolon separated (but often inserted as statement terminator) | |
| Kotlin | semicolon separated (but sometimes implicitly inserted on newlines) | |
| Lua | whitespace separated (semicolon optional) | |
| Mathematica also called Wolfram | semicolon separated | |
| MATLAB | newline terminated | semicolon or comma [3] |
| MUMPS also called M | newline terminates line-scope, the closest to a "statement" that M has | a space separates/terminates a command, allowing another command to follow |
| Nim | newline terminated | |
| Object Pascal (Delphi) | semicolon separated | |
| Objective-C | semicolon terminated | |
| OCaml | semicolon separated | |
| Pascal | semicolon separated | |
| Perl | semicolon separated | |
| PHP | semicolon terminated | |
| Pick Basic | newline terminated | semicolon separated |
| PowerShell | newline terminated | semicolon separated |
| Prolog | comma separated (conjunction), semicolon separated (disjunction), period terminated (clause) | |
| Python | newline terminated | semicolon |
| R | newline terminated [4] | semicolon [4] |
| Raku | semicolon separated | |
| Red | whitespace separated | |
| Ruby | newline terminated | semicolon |
| Rust | semicolon terminated | comma separates expressions |
| Scala | newline terminated (semicolon optional) | semicolon |
| Seed7 | semicolon separated (semicolon termination is allowed) | |
| Simula | semicolon separated | |
| S-Lang | semicolon separated | |
| Smalltalk | period separated | |
| Standard ML | semicolon separated | |
| Swift | semicolon separated (inserted by compiler) | |
| V (Vlang) | newline terminated | comma or semicolon separated |
| Visual Basic | newline terminated | colon separated |
| Visual Basic .NET | newline terminated | colon separated |
| Wolfram Language | semicolon separated | |
| Xojo | newline terminated | |
| Zig | semicolon terminated | |
| Language | Statement separator-terminator | Secondary separator-terminator [1] |
Line continuation is generally done as part of lexical analysis: a newline normally results in a token being added to the token stream, unless line continuation is detected.
\dnl%', then inserting a - in column 7 (same position as the * for comment is used.)  | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (December 2009) |
To import a library is a way to read external, possibly compiled, routines, programs or packages. Imports can be classified by level (module, package, class, procedure,...) and by syntax (directive name, attributes,...)
addpath(directory) MATLAB [10] COPY filename. COBOL :-include("filename"). Prolog #include file="filename" ASP #include "filename", AutoHotkey, AutoIt, C, C++ #include <filename> AutoHotkey, AutoIt, C, C++ #import "filename", Objective-C #import <filename> Objective-C Import["filename"] Mathematica, Wolfram Language include'filename' Fortran include "filename"; PHP include [filename] program, Pick Basic #include [filename] program Pick Basic include!("filename"); Rust load "filename" Ruby load%filename Red require('filename') Lua require "filename"; Perl, PHP require"filename" Ruby source(""filename"") R @import("filename"); Zig #include filename C, C++ #[path = "filename"] mod altname;, Rust @import module; Objective-C <<name Mathematica, Wolfram Language :-use_module(module). Prolog:from module import * Python extern crate libname;, Rust extern crate libname as altname; Rust mod modname;, Rust library("package") R:IMPORT module Oberon import altname "package/name" Go:import package.module;, D import altname = package.module; D import Module, Haskell import qualified Module as M Haskell import package.* Java, MATLAB, Kotlin import "modname"; JavaScript:import altname from "modname";, JavaScript:import package Scala import package._, Scala import module Swift import module V (Vlang) import module, Python require('modname') Lua:require"gem", Ruby use module, Fortran 90+use module, only : identifier Fortran 90+use Module;, Perl use Module qw(import options); Perl use Package.Name Cobra uses unit Pascal with package Ada @import("pkgname"); Zig from module import Class Python import package.class Java, MATLAB, kotlin import class from "modname";, JavaScript import {class} from "modname";, JavaScript import {class as altname} from "modname"; JavaScript import package.class, Scala import package.{ class1 => alternativeName, class2 }, Scala import package._ Scala use Namespace\ClassName;, PHP use Namespace\ClassName as AliasName; PHP from module import function Python:import package.module : symbol;, D:import package.module : altsymbolname = symbol; D:import Module (function) Haskell:import function from "modname";, JavaScript:import {function} from "modname";, JavaScript:import {function as altname} from "modname"; JavaScript:import package.function MATLAB:import package.class.function, Scala:import package.class.{ function => alternativeName, otherFunction } Scala:useModule('symbol'); Perl:use function Namespace\function_name;, PHP:use Namespace\function_name as function_alias_name; PHP:use module::submodule::symbol;, Rust:use module::submodule::{symbol1, symbol2};, Rust:use module::submodule::symbol as altname; Rust:use const Namespace\CONST_NAME; PHP The above statements can also be classified by whether they are a syntactic convenience (allowing things to be referred to by a shorter name, but they can still be referred to by some fully qualified name without import), or whether they are actually required to access the code (without which it is impossible to access the code, even with fully qualified names).
import altname "package/name" Go import altname from "modname"; JavaScript import module Python A block is a notation for a group of two or more statements, expressions or other units of code that are related in such a way as to comprise a whole.
{ ... }for & loop loops, or pass a block as argument), R, Rust, Scala, S-Lang, Swift, PowerShell, Haskell (in do-notation), AutoHotkey, Zig ( ... )[ ... ]begin ... endfor, do/while & do/until loops), OCaml, SCL, Simula, Erlang.do ... enddo ... donefor & while loops), F# (verbose syntax) [11] Visual Basic, Fortran, TUTOR (with mandatory indenting of block body), Visual Prolog do ... endend (e.g. if ... end):if, while, until, def, class, module statements), OCaml (for & while loops), MATLAB (if & switch conditionals, for & while loops, try clause, package, classdef, properties, methods, events, & function blocks), Lua (then / else & function)begin ...)do ...)if ... end if:If ... :EndIf or :If ... :Endif ... fi, do ... done, case ... esac;begin ... end, ( ... ), if ... fi, do ... odrepeat ... untilIF ... END-IF, PERFORM ... END-PERFORM, etc. for statements; ... . for sentences.If ... End If, For ... Next, Do ... LoopIf ... EndIf, For ... EndFor, While ... EndWhileComments can be classified by:
Inline comments are generally those that use a newline character to indicate the end of a comment, and an arbitrary delimiter or sequence of tokens to indicate the beginning of a comment.
Examples:
Block comments are generally those that use a delimiter to indicate the beginning of a comment, and another delimiter to indicate the end of a comment. In this context, whitespace and newline characters are not counted as delimiters. In the examples, the symbol ~ represents the comment; and, the symbols surrounding it are understood by the interpreters/compilers as the delimiters.
Examples:
| Symbol | Languages |
|---|---|
comment ~ ; | ALGOL 60, SIMULA |
¢ ~ ¢,# ~ #, co ~ co,comment ~ comment | ALGOL 68 [14] [15] |
/* ~ */ | ActionScript, AutoHotkey, C, C++, C#, D, [16] Go, Java, JavaScript, Kotlin, Objective-C, PHP, PL/I, Prolog, Rexx, Rust (can be nested), Scala (can be nested), SAS, SASS, SQL, Swift (can be nested), V (Vlang), Visual Prolog, CSS |
#cs ~ #ce | AutoIt [17] |
/+ ~ +/ | D (can be nested) [16] |
/# ~ #/ | Cobra (can be nested) |
<# ~ #> | PowerShell |
<!-- ~ --> | HTML, XML |
=begin ~ =cut | Perl (Plain Old Documentation) |
#`( ~ ) | Raku (bracketing characters can be (), <>, {}, [], any Unicode characters with BiDi mirrorings, or Unicode characters with Ps/Pe/Pi/Pf properties) |
=begin ~ =end | Ruby |
#<TAG> ~ #</TAG>, #stop ~ EOF ,#iffalse ~ #endif, #ifntrue ~ #endif,#if false ~ #endif, #if !true ~ #endif | S-Lang [18] |
{- ~ -} | Haskell (can be nested) |
(* ~ *) | Delphi, ML, Mathematica, Object Pascal, Pascal, Seed7, AppleScript, OCaml (can be nested), Standard ML (can be nested), Maple, Newspeak, F# |
{ ~ } | Delphi, Object Pascal, Pascal, PGN, Red |
{# ~ #} | Nunjucks, Twig |
{{! ~ }} | Mustache, Handlebars |
{{!-- ~ --}} | Handlebars (cannot be nested, but may contain {{ and }}) |
|# ~ #| | Curl |
%{ ~ %} | MATLAB [13] (the symbols must be in a separate line) |
#| ~ |# | Lisp, Scheme, Racket (can be nested in all three). |
#= ~ =# | Julia [19] |
#[ ~ ]# | Nim [20] |
--[[ ~ ]],--[=[ ~ ]=],--[=...=[ ~ ]=...=] | Lua (brackets can have any number of matching = characters; can be nested within non-matching delimiters) |
" ~ " | Smalltalk |
(comment ~ ) | Clojure |
#If COMMENT Then ~ #End If [lower-alpha 1] | Visual Basic .NET |
#if COMMENT ~ #endif [lower-alpha 2] | C# |
' comment _ or REM comment _ [lower-alpha 3] | Classic Visual Basic, VBA, VBScript |
C' in column 1 indicates that this entire line is a comment. Columns 1 though 5 may contain a number which serves as a label. Columns 73 though 80 are ignored and may be used for comments; in the days of punched cards, these columns often contained a sequence number so that the deck of cards could be sorted into the correct order if someone accidentally dropped the cards. Fortran 90 removed the need for the indentation rule and added inline comments, using the ! character as the comment delimiter.* or / is in column 7, then that line is a comment. Until COBOL 2002, if a D or d was in column 7, it would define a "debugging line" which would be ignored unless the compiler was instructed to compile it./# ... #/" which is like the "/* ... */" often found in C-based languages, but with two differences. The # character is reused from the single-line comment form "# ...", and the block comments can be nested which is convenient for commenting out large blocks of code.|foo# ... #foo|.--[[comment --[=[ nested comment ]=] ]]. Lua discards the first newline (if present) that directly follows the opening tag.~S (which prevents string interpolation) to the triple-quoted string, leading to the final construct ~S""" ... """. In addition, Elixir supports a limited form of block comments as an official language feature, but as in Perl, this construct is entirely intended to write documentation. Unlike in Perl, it cannot be used as a workaround, being limited to certain parts of the code and throwing errors or even suppressing functions if used elsewhere. [22] #`(...) to denote block comments. [23] Raku actually allows the use of any "right" and "left" paired brackets after #` (i.e. #`(...), #`[...], #`{...}, #`<...>, and even the more complicated #`{{...}} are all valid block comments). Brackets are also allowed to be nested inside comments (i.e. #`{ a { b } c } goes to the last closing brace).=begin line and closes at =end line.#<tag> and #</tag> delimiters are ignored by the interpreter. The tag name can be any sequence of alphanumeric characters that may be used to indicate how the enclosed block is to be deciphered. For example, #<latex> could indicate the start of a block of LaTeX formatted documentation.#; .ABAP supports two different kinds of comments. If the first character of a line, including indentation, is an asterisk (*) the whole line is considered as a comment, while a single double quote (") begins an in-line comment which acts until the end of the line. ABAP comments are not possible between the statements EXEC SQL and ENDEXEC because Native SQL has other usages for these characters. In the most SQL dialects the double dash (--) can be used instead.
There is a wide variety of syntax styles for declaring comments in source code. BlockComment in italics is used here to indicate block comment style. InlineComment in italics is used here to indicate inline comment style.
| Language | In-line comment | Block comment |
|---|---|---|
| Ada, Eiffel, Euphoria, Occam, SPARK, ANSI SQL, and VHDL | -- InlineComment | |
| ALGOL 60 | comment BlockComment; | |
| ALGOL 68 | ¢ BlockComment ¢
| |
| APL | ⍝ InlineComment | |
| AppleScript | -- InlineComment | (* BlockComment *) |
| Assembly language (varies) | ; InlineComment one example (most assembly languages use line comments only) | |
| AutoHotkey | ; InlineComment | /* BlockComment */ |
| AWK, Bourne shell, C shell, Maple, PowerShell | # InlineComment | <# BlockComment #> |
| Bash | # InlineComment | <<EOF: ' |
| BASIC (various dialects): | 'InlineComment (not all dialects)
| |
| C (K&R, ANSI/C89/C90), CHILL, PL/I, REXX | /* BlockComment */ | |
| C (C99), C++, Go, Swift, JavaScript, V (Vlang) | // InlineComment | /* BlockComment */ |
| C# | // InlineComment/// InlineComment (XML documentation comment) | /* BlockComment *//** BlockComment */ (XML documentation comment)#if COMMENT (Compiler directive) [lower-alpha 2] |
| COBOL I to COBOL 85 | * InlineComment (* in column 7) | |
| COBOL 2002 | *> InlineComment | |
| Curl | ||InlineComment | |# BlockComment #|
|
| Cobra | # InlineComment | /# BlockComment #/ (nestable) |
| D | // InlineComment/// Documentation InlineComment (ddoc comments) | /* BlockComment *//** Documentation BlockComment */ (ddoc comments)
|
| DCL | $! InlineComment | |
| ECMAScript (JavaScript, ActionScript, etc.) | // InlineComment | /* BlockComment */ |
| Elixir | # InlineComment | ~S"""@doc """ (Documentation, only works in modules)@moduledoc (Module documentation)@typedoc (Type documentation) |
| Forth | \ InlineComment | ( BlockComment ) (single line and multiline)
|
| FORTRAN I to FORTRAN 77 | C InlineComment (C in column 1) | |
| Fortran 90 and later | ! InlineComment | #if 0 [lower-alpha 4] |
| Haskell | -- InlineComment | {- BlockComment -} |
| J | NB. | |
| Java | // InlineComment | /* BlockComment */
|
| Julia | # InlineComment | #=BlockComment=# |
| Lisp, Scheme | ; InlineComment | #|BlockComment|# |
| Lua | -- InlineComment | --[==[ BlockComment]==] (variable number of = signs, nestable with delimiters with different numbers of = signs) |
| Maple | # InlineComment | (* BlockComment *) |
| Mathematica | (* BlockComment *) | |
| Matlab | % InlineComment | %{Note: Both percent–bracket symbols must be the only non-whitespace characters on their respective lines. |
| Nim | # InlineComment | #[BlockComment]# |
| Object Pascal | // InlineComment | (* BlockComment *){ BlockComment } |
| OCaml | (* BlockComment (* nestable *) *) | |
| Pascal, Modula-2, Modula-3, Oberon, ML: | (* BlockComment *) | |
| Perl, Ruby | # InlineComment | =begin (=end in Ruby) (POD documentation comment)
|
| PGN, Red | ; InlineComment | { BlockComment } |
| PHP | # InlineComment// InlineComment | /* BlockComment *//** Documentation BlockComment */ (PHP Doc comments) |
| PILOT | R:InlineComment | |
| PLZ/SYS | ! BlockComment ! | |
| PL/SQL, TSQL | -- InlineComment | /* BlockComment */ |
| Prolog | % InlineComment | /* BlockComment */ |
| Python | # InlineComment | '''BlockComment'''(Documentation string when first line of module, class, method, or function) |
| R | # InlineComment | |
| Raku | # InlineComment | #`{
|
| Rust | // InlineComment
| /* BlockComment */ (nestable)
|
| SAS | * BlockComment;/* BlockComment */ | |
| Seed7 | # InlineComment | (* BlockComment *) |
| Simula | comment BlockComment;! BlockComment; | |
| Smalltalk | "BlockComment" | |
| Smarty | {* BlockComment *} | |
| Standard ML | (* BlockComment *) | |
| TeX, LaTeX, PostScript, Erlang, S-Lang | % InlineComment | |
| Texinfo | @c InlineComment
| |
| TUTOR | * InlineCommentcommand $$ InlineComment | |
| Visual Basic | 'InlineCommentRem InlineComment | 'BlockComment _Rem BlockComment _ [lower-alpha 3] |
| Visual Basic .NET | 'InlineComment
| #If COMMENT Then |
| Visual Prolog | % InlineComment | /* BlockComment */ |
| Wolfram Language | (* BlockComment *) | |
| Xojo | ' InlineComment// InlineCommentrem InlineComment | |
| Zig | // InlineComment/// InlineComment//! InlineComment |
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