declarative language
A general term for a relational language or a functional
language, as opposed to an imperative language. Imperative
(or procedural) languages specify explicit sequences of steps
to follow to produce a result, while declarative languages
describe relationships between variables in terms of functions
or inference rules and the language executor ({interpreter
or compiler) applies some fixed algorithm to these
relations to produce a result. The most common examples of
declarative languages are logic programming languages such
as Prolog and functional languages like Haskell.
See also production system.
(1994-11-23)