What does syntax mean?

The rules that say how a language's instructions must be written: the spelling, the brackets, the colons, the indentation. A syntax error is code that breaks those rules, and the program cannot run at all until it is fixed.

Also written as: syntax error, syntax errors

In a lesson

The syntax of a language is its rules of grammar: brackets that close, quotes that end, colons in the right places. Break a rule and Python cannot understand the program at all, so none of it runs, not even the lines before the mistake:

Learn it

• Taught in F1.4 Errors: syntax, runtime and logic Programming basics, GCSE

Used in

• F2.1 Blocks and indentation
• F5.3 Pseudocode and the exam reference language
• F6.4 Debugging logic errors
• F6.6 The IDE
• A1.3 Exception handling
• A1.5 Scope, lifetime and debugging in an IDE
• A4.5 Trees
• A6.5 Backus-Naur Form and syntax diagrams
• A9.6 AQA assembly language and bitwise operations
• A10.8 Stages of compilation, linkers and loaders

and 4 more lessons.

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