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A snippet of Java code with keywords highlighted in blue and bold font. In the Java programming language, a keyword is any one of 68 reserved words [1] that have a predefined meaning in the language. Because of this, programmers cannot use keywords in some contexts, such as names for variables, methods, classes, or as any other identifier. [2]
A snippet of Java code with keywords highlighted in bold blue font. The syntax of Java is the set of rules defining how a Java program is written and interpreted. The syntax is mostly derived from C and C++. Unlike C++, Java has no global functions or variables, but has data members which are also regarded as global variables.
The choice of a variable name should be mnemonic — that is, designed to indicate to the casual observer the intent of its use. One-character variable names should be avoided except for temporary "throwaway" variables. Common names for temporary variables are i, j, k, m, and n for integers; c, d, and e for characters. int i;
In Ruby a variable is automatically considered immutable if its identifier starts with a capital letter. In Go, the capitalization of the first letter of a variable's name determines its visibility (uppercase for public, lowercase for private). In some languages such as Go, identifiers uniqueness is based on their spelling and their visibility. [2]
The identifier list is bound to a variable in the first line; in the second, an object (a linked list of strings) is assigned to the variable. The linked list referenced by the variable is then mutated, adding a string to the list. Next, the variable is assigned the constant null. In the last line, the identifier is rebound for the scope of the ...
An identifier I' (for variable X') masks an identifier I (for variable X) when two conditions are met I' has the same name as I; I' is defined in a scope which is a subset of the scope of I; The outer variable X is said to be shadowed by the inner variable X'. For example, the parameter "foo" shadows the local variable "foo" in this common pattern:
Some programming languages make an explicit syntactic distinction between constant and variable symbols, for example considering assignment to a constant to be a syntax error, while in other languages they are considered syntactically the same (both simply an identifier), and the difference in treatment is semantic (assignment to an identifier ...
A notable example is in Java, where const and goto are reserved words — they have no meaning in Java but they also cannot be used as identifiers. By reserving the terms, they can be implemented in future versions of Java, if desired, without breaking older Java source code.