Lexical Grammar
The specification of a programming language often includes a set of rules which defines the lexer. These rules usually consist of regular expressions, and they define the set of possible character sequences that are used to form individual tokens or lexemes.
In programming languages that delimit blocks with tokens (e.g., "{" and "}"), as opposed to off-side rule languages that delimit blocks with indentation, white space is also defined by a regular expression and influences the recognition of other tokens but does not itself contribute tokens. White space is said to be non-significant in such languages.
Read more about this topic: Lexical Analysis
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“Literary gentlemen, editors, and critics think that they know how to write, because they have studied grammar and rhetoric; but they are egregiously mistaken. The art of composition is as simple as the discharge of a bullet from a rifle, and its masterpieces imply an infinitely greater force behind them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)