Reference language

A standardised reference language is used in National 4 Computing Science. This language differs from pseudocode in that there is a clear structure that must always be adhered to. It is essential to be able to read and understand this reference language.

Reference language is formal which means, while appearing very similar, it is not pseudocode. It provides everyone studying Computing Science with a standard that must be understood by all.

Basic elements

Identifiers

Identifiers should not contain spaces and should always start with a letter. In this example, high score could be identified as:

highscore
high_score
highScore

Arrays can be identified by the inclusion of square brackets. An array of high scores could be identified as:

highscore[ ]

Array indexing will start from 0 unless otherwise stated.

The following tables contain basic elements of the reference language that can be grouped together easily.

Operations (Interger and Real data types)

Operation	Symbol
Add	`+`
Subtract	`-`
Multiply	`*`
Divide	`/`
Minus	`-unary`
Exponent (to the power of)	`^`

Operation	Add
Symbol	`+`

Operation	Subtract
Symbol	`-`

Operation	Multiply
Symbol	`*`

Operation	Divide
Symbol	`/`

Operation	Minus
Symbol	`-unary`

Operation	Exponent (to the power of)
Symbol	`^`

Operations (Interger only)

Operation	Symbol
Modulo/Find the remainder of	`mod`

Operation	Modulo/Find the remainder of
Symbol	`mod`

Comparison Operators

Operation	Symbol
Equality/Equals	`=`
Inequality/Does not equal	`≠`
Less than	`<`
Less than or equal to	`≤`
Greater than	`>`
Greater than or equal to	`≥`

Operation	Equality/Equals
Symbol	`=`

Operation	Inequality/Does not equal
Symbol	`≠`

Operation	Less than
Symbol	`<`

Operation	Less than or equal to
Symbol	`≤`

Operation	Greater than
Symbol	`>`

Operation	Greater than or equal to
Symbol	`≥`

Logical Operators

Operation	Symbol
Both Required (conjunction)	`AND`
One or the other required (disjunction)	`OR`
Not (negation)	`NOT`

Operation	Both Required (conjunction)
Symbol	`AND`

Operation	One or the other required (disjunction)
Symbol	`OR`

Operation	Not (negation)
Symbol	`NOT`

Reference languageReference language