Procedural Programming

What is Procedural Programming?

Procedural programming is a programming paradigm that uses a linear or top-down approach. It is based on the concept of procedure calls, where procedures (also known as routines, subroutines, or functions) are a set of instructions that perform a specific task.

Key Principles of Procedural Programming

Modularity: Code is divided into smaller, manageable sections called procedures or functions.
Sequence: Instructions are executed in a specific order, typically from top to bottom.
Iteration: Repeating a set of instructions using loops (e.g., for, while).
Selection: Making decisions using conditional statements (e.g., if, switch).

Example of Procedural Programming

Here is a simple example in Python that demonstrates procedural programming by calculating the factorial of a number:

def factorial(n):
    if n == 0:
        return 1
    else:
        return n * factorial(n - 1)

def main():
    number = int(input("Enter a number: "))
    result = factorial(number)
    print(f"The factorial of {number} is {result}")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

In this example:

The factorial function is a procedure that calculates the factorial of a number.
The main function handles user input and output.
The program execution starts from the main function, demonstrating the top-down approach.

Last modified: 14 December 2024