Structured English is the use of the English language

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 with the syntax of structured programming

Structured programming

Structured programming is a programming paradigm aimed on improving the clarity, quality, and development time of a computer program by making extensive use of subroutines, block structures and for and while loops - in contrast to using simple tests and jumps such as the goto statement which could...

. Thus structured English aims at getting the benefits of both the programming logic and natural language. Program logic helps to attain precision while natural language helps in getting the convenience of spoken languages.

Elements

Structured English or "pseudocode" consists of the following elements:

1. Operation statements written as English phrases executed from the top down
2. Conditional blocks indicated by keywords such as IF, THEN, and ELSE
3. Repetition blocks indicated by keywords such as DO, WHILE, and UNTIL

Use the following guidelines when writing Structured English:

1. Statements should be clear and unambiguous
2. Use one line per logical element
3. All logic should be expressed in operational, conditional, and repetition blocks
4. Logical blocks should be indented to show relationship
5. Keywords should be capitalized

Examples of common keywords

START, BEGIN, END, STOP, DO, WHILE, DO WHILE, FOR, UNTIL, DO UNTIL, REPEAT, END WHILE, END UNTIL, END REPEAT, IF THEN, IF, ELSE, IF ELSE, END IF, THEN, ELSE THEN, ELSE IF, SO, CASE, EQUAL, LT, LE, GT, GE, NOT, TRUE, FALSE, AND, OR, XOR, GET, WRITE, PUT, UPDATE, CLOSE, OPEN, CREATE, DELETE, EXIT, FILE, READ, EOF, EOT, WITH,RETURN

Example of Structured English

A bank will grant loan under the following conditions

1. If a customer has an account with the bank and had no loan outstanding, loan will be granted.
2. If a customer has an account with the bank but some amount is outstanding from previous loans then loan will be granted if special approval is given.
3. Reject all loan applications in all other cases.

IF customer has a Bank Account THEN
IF Customer has no dues from previous account THEN
Allow loan facility
ELSE
IF Management Approval is obtained THEN
Allow loan facility
ELSE
Reject
ENDIF
ENDIF
ELSE
Reject
ENDIF

Other Specification Tools

System processes at a lower level involve lot of computations and require more precision and clarity. This can be achieved with tools like:

1. Decision Tree
   Decision tree
   A decision tree is a decision support tool that uses a tree-like graph or model of decisions and their possible consequences, including chance event outcomes, resource costs, and utility. It is one way to display an algorithm. Decision trees are commonly used in operations research, specifically...
   
   ,
2. Decision tables, and

See also

• Structured programming
  Structured programming
  Structured programming is a programming paradigm aimed on improving the clarity, quality, and development time of a computer program by making extensive use of subroutines, block structures and for and while loops - in contrast to using simple tests and jumps such as the goto statement which could...
  
  
• SQL
  SQL
  SQL is a programming language designed for managing data in relational database management systems ....
  
   (formerly Structured English Query Language)
• Pseudocode
  Pseudocode
  In computer science and numerical computation, pseudocode is a compact and informal high-level description of the operating principle of a computer program or other algorithm. It uses the structural conventions of a programming language, but is intended for human reading rather than machine reading...
  
  
• Decision Tree
  Decision tree
  A decision tree is a decision support tool that uses a tree-like graph or model of decisions and their possible consequences, including chance event outcomes, resource costs, and utility. It is one way to display an algorithm. Decision trees are commonly used in operations research, specifically...
  
  
• Decision tables