Editing Block (programming) (section)

==History==
Ideas of block structure were developed in the 1950s during the development of the first [[autocode]]s, and were formalized in the [[Algol 58]] and [[Algol 60]] reports. Algol 58 introduced the notion of the "compound statement", which was related solely to [[control flow]].<ref name="algol58_report">{{cite journal
|last1= Perlis |first1 = A. J. |author-link1=Alan Perlis
|last2= Samelson |first2= K.
| date = 1958
| title = Preliminary report: international algebraic language
| journal = Communications of the ACM
| doi = 10.1145/377924.594925
| publisher =ACM
| location = New York, NY, USA
| volume = 1
| issue = 12
| pages = 8–22
|s2cid = 28755282 | doi-access = free
}}</ref> The subsequent ''Revised Report'' which described the syntax and semantics of Algol 60 introduced the notion of a block and [[block scope]], with a block consisting of " A sequence of declarations followed by a sequence of statements and enclosed between begin and end..." in which "[e]very declaration appears in a block in this way and is valid only for that block."<ref name="algol60_report">{{cite journal |last1=Backus |first1=J. W. |author-link1=John Backus |last2=Bauer |first2=F. L. |author-link2=Friedrich L. Bauer |last3=Green |first3=J. |last4=Katz |first4=C. |last5=McCarthy |first5=J. |last6=Perlis |first6=A. J. |last7=Rutishauser |first7=H. |author-link7=Heinz Rutishauser |last8=Samelson |first8=K. |last9=Vauquois |first9=B. |author-link9=Bernard Vauquois |last10=Wegstein |first10=J. H. |last11=van Wijngaarden |first11=A. |last12=Woodger |first12=M. |date=May 1960 |editor1-last=Naur |editor1-first=Peter |title=Report on the Algorithmic Language ALGOL 60 |url=http://www.masswerk.at/algol60/report.htm |journal=Communications of the ACM |location=New York, NY, USA |publisher=ACM |volume=3 |issue=5 |pages=299–314 |doi=10.1145/367236.367262 |issn=0001-0782 |s2cid=278290 |access-date=2009-10-27 |doi-access=free |editor1-link=Peter Naur}}</ref>