syntactic sugar

English

Etymology

Attributed to British computer scientist Peter Landin.

Noun

syntactic sugar (uncountable)

1. (computing) Additions to the syntax of a computer language that make code easier for humans to read or write, but that do not change the functionality or expressiveness of the language.

   In fact, this is how lists are actually built, by consing all elements to the empty list, []. The commas-and-brackets notation is just syntactic sugar, a more pleasant way to write code. So [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] is exactly equivalent to 1:2:3:4:5:[]. ^WB

Antonyms

• syntactic salt

Derived terms

• desugar
• desugared

Translations

Translations

• Arabic: التَّجْمِيل اللُّغَوِيّ m (at-tajmīl al-luḡawiyy)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 語法糖／语法糖 (yǔfǎ táng)

• Czech: syntaktický cukr m
• Dutch: syntactische suiker m
• Finnish: syntaktinen sokeri
• French: sucre syntaxique (fr) m
• German: syntaktischer Zucker m
• Ido: sintaxala sukro
• Italian: zucchero sintattico m
• Japanese: 糖衣構文 (とういこうぶん, tōikōbun), 構文糖 (こうぶんとう, kōbuntō), 構文糖衣 (こうぶんとうい, kōbuntōi), シンタックス・シュガー
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: syntaktisk sukker n

• Polish: lukier składniowy m, lukier syntaktyczny m, cukier syntaktyczny m, cukier składniowy m
• Portuguese: açúcar sintático m
• Russian: синтакси́ческий са́хар m (sintaksíčeskij sáxar)
• Spanish: azúcar sintáctico m
• Swedish: syntaktiskt socker n
• Turkish: sözdizimsel şeker
• Ukrainian: синтаксичний цукор m (syntaksyčnyj cukor)

See also

• pretty-print

Further reading

• syntactic sugar on Wikipedia.Wikipedia