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Routine

Routines, also known as subroutines (in e.g., Fortran), procedures (in languages such as Pascal), functions (in e.g., C and other brace family languages), subprograms, etc., are the main abstraction mechanism of the imperative paradigm. There are two kinds of routines:

• Returning value, such as Pascal's functions. The abstraction metaphor of these is that of operators such as + used in expressions.
• Non-returning value, such as void functions in brace family languages. The abstraction metaphor of these is that of statements.