Skip to main content

Difference between Syntax and Semantics

Here you will learn about difference between Syntax and Semantics with example.

The both terms might seem the same things but they are not, they are just interrelated concepts, which even exist as individuals.

What is Syntax?

When we talk about a language (not just a programming language), let’s say English (most common one), there are certain rules of grammar we have to follow if we want to practice this language in the real world. These rules actually define the structure of our sentence.

A Simple rule: Noun + Verb + object

To make sense and let others understand what we want to convey in certain language, we need these rules. They are the grammar of a language that the user must follow.

Same is in programming, if we talk about any language like C, C++, Java, etc there are certain rules that we follow when coding to make the compiler understand what we want to convey.

Some of these rules are:

  1. Command terminates with a semi colon.
  2. Code block starts with a opening curly brace “{“ and ends with a closing curly brace “}”.
  3. for loop has three statements inside round brackets“()”, first one is initialise, second one is condition and third is variable update.

So these actually form a structure to write something that is correct and agrees with the grammar of a language.

This grammar of a language is called Syntax of that language.

What is Semantics?

Semantics, on the other hand, deals with the logical part of a sentence/statement. Let’s say the following English sentence:

Dog fly aeroplane.

This sentence is correct on the part of the syntax of the English Grammar

A Simple rule: Noun + Verb + object

But it’s not logically correct (if are not being sarcastic).

This logical meaning of a sentence that defines its validity is what we call Semantics of that sentence.

Semantics deals with the meaning of a sentence. In programming, if call a function that can only work on two values of a ‘char’ variable.

func(char c){
        if(c == 'y'){
                //DO SOMETHING
        }
        else if(c == 'n'){
                //DO ANOTHERTHING
        }
}

And we call this function with some other value:

func(‘a’);

This statement is perfect with the syntax aspect but is logically wrong i.e., semantically wrong.

Lets know about syntax vs semantics in tabular form.

Difference between Syntax and Semantics

Syntax Semantics
The grammar of a language is called Syntax. Semantics deals with the meaning of a sentence.
Syntax errors can be caught at compilation time and are easy to track. Semantics errors are hard to find. They are mostly encountered at runtime, or when the results do not match with the expectations.

So this was the major difference between semantics and syntax of a language, or even in general to anything.

The post Difference between Syntax and Semantics appeared first on The Crazy Programmer.



from The Crazy Programmer https://www.thecrazyprogrammer.com/2018/05/difference-between-syntax-and-semantics.html
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

dotnet sdk list and dotnet sdk latest

Can someone make .NET Core better with a simple global command? Fanie Reynders did and he did it in a simple and elegant way. I'm envious, in fact, because I spec'ed this exact thing out in a meeting a few months ago but I could have just done it like he did and I would have used fewer keystrokes! Last year when .NET Core was just getting started, there was a "DNVM" helper command that you could use to simplify dealing with multiple versions of the .NET SDK on one machine. Later, rather than 'switching global SDK versions,' switching was simplified to be handled on a folder by folder basis. That meant that if you had a project in a folder with no global.json that pinned the SDK version, your project would use the latest installed version. If you liked, you could create a global.json file and pin your project's folder to a specific version. Great, but I would constantly have to google to remember the format for the global.json file, and I'd constan...
Post a Comment
Read more

15 Web Design Trends to Watch in 2018

The modern world is full of extraordinary things that influence our imagination and mood. Our soul needs a perfect atmosphere and impressive spots. To apply such things in practice, we have submitted the list of the web trends that deserve your attention. Robert frost design analysis will meet all your wishes and expectations. Image Source Web Design Trends to Watch in 2018 1. More Organic Shapes Until this year, web design, as well as mobile design, were based on the right-angled and sharp-edged shapes. However, it seems that this year will bring some significant changes in the field of web design. The recent trends will offer the absolute rounded corners. In addition, the web design of 2018 will make the real things look like the cartoonish ones. 2.   Bold Minimalism Although some of you may think that this web design trend will not attract the Internet users. Indeed, the notion of minimalism is often associated with boredom and dullness. However, in this case, bold ...
Post a Comment
Read more

R vs Python for Machine Learning

There are so many things to learn before to choose which language is good for Machine Learning. We will discuss each and everything about R as well as Python and the situation or problem in which situation we have to use which language. Let’s start Python and R are the two most Commonly used Programming Languages for Machine Learning and because of the popularity of both the languages Novice or you can say fresher are getting confused, whether they should choose R or Python language to commence their career in the Machine learning domain. Don’t worry guys through this article we will discuss R vs Python for Machine Learning. So, without exaggerating this article let’s get started. We will start it from the very Basics things or definitions. R vs Python for Machine Learning Introduction R is a programming language made by statisticians and data miners for statistical analysis and graphics supported by R foundation for statistical computing. R also provides high-quality graphics and...
1 comment
Read more