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Pseudocode

Vangie Beal
Last Updated May 24, 2021 7:52 am

An outline of a program, written in a form that can easily be converted into real programming statements. For example, the pseudocode for a bubble sortroutine might be written:

while not at end of list
compare adjacent elements
if second is greater than first
switch them
get next two elements
if elements were switched
repeat for entire list

Pseudocode cannot be compiled nor executed, and there are no real formatting or syntax rules. It is simply one step – an important one – in producing the final code. The benefit of pseudocode is that it enables the programmer to concentrate on the algorithms without worrying about all the syntactic details of a particular programming language. In fact, you can write pseudocode without even knowing what programming language you will use for the final implementation.