Java syntax

A snippet of Java code with keywords highlighted in blue and bold font

The syntax of the Java programming language is a set of rules that defines how a Java program is written and interpreted.

Keywords

A keyword is one of 50 reserved words which have a predefined meaning in the language; because of this, programmers cannot use keywords as names for variables, methods, classes, or as any other identifier.^[1] Due to their special functions in the language, most integrated development environments for Java use syntax highlighting to display keywords in a different color for easy identification.^{[citation needed]}

Patrick Naughton, Herbert Schildt. Java 2: The Complete Reference, third edition. The McGraw-Hill Companies, 1999. ISBN 0-07-211976-4
Vermeulen, Ambler, Bumgardner, Metz, Misfeldt, Shur, Thompson. The Elements of Java Style. Cambridge University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-521-77768-2
Gosling, James; Joy Bill; Steele, Guy; and Bracha, Gillad (2005). Java Language Specification (3rd ed.). Addison-Wesley Professional. http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/index.html. Retrieved 2008-12-03.

Java

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