Is C an imperative or declarative programming language
It is quite confusing to know difference between Imperative and Declarative programming can any one explain difference between both in real world terms?
Kindly clarify whether C is an Imperative or Declarative Language?
Answer
C is an imperative programming language.
A one line difference between the two would be Declarative programming is when you say what you want, and imperative language is when you say how to get what you want. In Declarative programming the focus is on what the computer should do rather than how it should do it (ex. SQL) whereas in the Imperative programming the focus is on what steps the computer should take rather than what the computer will do (ex. C, C++, Java).
Imperative programming is a programming paradigm that describes computation in terms of statements that change a program state
Declarative programming is a programming paradigm, a style of building the structure and elements of computer programs, that expresses the logic of a computation without describing its control flow
Many imperative programming languages (such as Fortran, BASIC and C) are abstractions of assembly language.
The wiki says:-
As an imperative language, C uses statements to specify actions. The most common statement is an expression statement, consisting of an expression to be evaluated, followed by a semicolon; as a side effect of the evaluation, functions may be called and variables may be assigned new values. To modify the normal sequential execution of statements, C provides several control-flow statements identified by reserved keywords. Structured programming is supported by if(-else) conditional execution and by do-while, while, and for iterative execution (looping). The for statement has separate initialization, testing, and reinitialization expressions, any or all of which can be omitted. break and continue can be used to leave the innermost enclosing loop statement or skip to its reinitialization. There is also a non-structured goto statement which branches directly to the designated label within the function. switch selects a case to be executed based on the value of an integer expression.