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Writer's pictureApurba Paul

Fundamentals of Computer_5: Overview of Procedural vs Structural language, compiler and assembler

Procedural Programming Languages:

These languages programs in such a way that the program executes statement by statement, reading and modifying a shared memory. The program communicates with the OS are through a set of procedures, or functions, which in turn is a group of specific instructions executed one after the other. The data was quite separate from the procedures and the challenge was to keep track of the order in which the functions are called and what data was changed.

Ex: Pascal, Fortran, COBOL


Structured Programming languages: 

              These are based on the top-down methodology in which a system is further divided into subsystem these are Typically Called Functions. The structured programming concept was formalized in the year 1966 by Corrado Böhm and Giuseppe Jacopini.

Structured programming is not only limited to the top-down approach. It employs methods using:-

Top-down analysis for problem-solving: It focuses on dividing the problem into sub-parts and hence simplifies the problem-solving.


Modularization for program structure and organization: It organizes large instructions by breaking them into separate and smaller sections of modules, subroutines, and subprograms.


Structured code for the individual modules Control structures is used to determine the exact order in which the set of instructions is to be executed. 


By Introducing Modularity maintaining of Code and Debugging of Codes is became Easy and Readability of Code also Increased.

Ex: C.

C is STRUCTURED PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE


Difference Between Compiler and Interpreter

A compiler is a translator which transforms source language (high-level language) into object language (machine language). In contrast with a compiler, an interpreter is a program which imitates the execution of programs written in a source language. Another difference between Compiler and interpreter is that Compiler converts the whole program in one go on the other hand Interpreter converts the program by taking a single line at a time.

Evidently, the perceivability of humans and an electronic device like a computer is different. Humans can understand anything through natural languages, but a computer doesn’t. The computer needs a translator to convert the languages written in the human-readable form to the computer-readable form.

Compiler and interpreter are the types of a language translator. What is Language translator? This question might be arising in your mind.

A language translator is a software which translates the programs from a source language that are in human-readable form into an equivalent program in an object language. The source language is generally a high-level programming language, and the object language is typically the machine language of an actual computer.


Assembler

An assembler is a type of computer program that interprets software programs written in assembly language into machine language, code and instructions that can be executed by a computer.

An assembler enables software and application developers to access, operate and manage a computer's hardware architecture and components.

An assembler is sometimes referred to as the compiler of assembly language. It also provides the services of an interpreter.


An assembler primarily serves as the bridge between symbolically coded instructions written in assembly language and the computer processor, memory and other computational components. An assembler works by assembling and converting the source code of assembly language into object code or an object file that constitutes a stream of zeros and ones of machine code, which are directly executable by the processor.

Assemblers are classified based on the number of times it takes them to read the source code before translating it; there are both single-pass and multi-pass assemblers. Moreover, some high-end assemblers provide enhanced functionality by enabling the use of control statements, data abstraction services and providing support for object-oriented programming structures.

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