2. Procedural languages

A procedural computer language is one that allows the programmer to set out, step by step, what the computer needs to do. It does this in the form of instructions written in source code.

A procedural language is imperative, meaning that it gives orders or instructions.

A procedural language is sequential, meaning that instructions carried out one after another. These steps form the program flow.

Related instructions in the same program can be grouped together to form 'subroutines' and 'functions' which are described later.

Examples of procedural language

See below a typical piece of source code written in a procedural language :-

y = 1224;

for (x = 0; x < 100; x++) {

   z = y + x;

}

In this clip, the computer is instructed to first set a variable (y), and then enter a loop. The procedural language is precisely defining what the computer should be doing at each step.