Chapter 2

Syntax

Bodies

A body is a sequence of zero or more constituents. When multiple constituents are present, they are separated by semicolons. When at least one constituent is present, the last constituent can optionally be followed by a semicolon; this allows programmers to regard the semicolon as either a terminator or a separator, according to their preferred programming style.

A constituent is either a definition, a local declaration, or an expression. Definitions and local declarations form the structure of a program and do not return values. In contrast, expressions are executed for the values they return and/or the side-effects that they perform.