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The Sym Programming Language
The Sym programming language is designed first and foremost for manipulating expressions. Because it's designed to manipulate expressions, the code in the Sym language is built from Sym expressions rather than text.

The Sym Programming Language
The Sym programming language is designed first and foremost for manipulating expressions. Because it's designed to manipulate expressions, the code in the Sym language is built from Sym expressions rather than text.
- Functions
  A function is an object definition that includes clauses its Implementation section.
- Pattern Matching - Overview
  The purpose of a pattern match is to bind an expression to a variable during the execution of code. Most commonly, the expressions that become the values bound variables are the parameters passed into a function call.
- Unit Testing
  Unit tests provide a way to validate that code functions correctly and to detect errors that might be introduced as code is modified. A Unit Test Module contains a list of unit tests. Unit tests can be run individually, all of the tests in a unit test module can be executed at the same time, or using the Unit Test Runner, unit tests from multiple unit test modules can be run simultaneously.
- Exporters
- The Build Process
  The build process converts the clauses in object definitions into a form that can be executed. The build process also runs the type inferencing process on all of the expressions in the document, which speeds up execution of commands and unit tests. At the end of the build process, the rendering of any open modules is updated to reflect any changes to the renderings in object definitions.

The Sym Programming Language

The Sym programming language is designed first and foremost for manipulating expressions. Because it's designed to manipulate expressions, the code in the Sym language is built from Sym expressions rather than text.

The code in Sym is made up of functions (which are themselves objects in the Sym application). A function is just an object definition that contain a code section. See Objects for more details about object definitions. For example, this object definition defines the function MyCommute. This function has a single clause that commutes the two parameters of an Add object (note that an Add object can have zero or more parameters, this particular example will only commute a two parameter instance of the Add object).

Not all object definitions are necessarily functions. This object is a function because of the addition of code. The code in a function consists of one or more clauses. See Functions for more details.

One way a function can be executed is by applying a command to a highlighted expression. See Commands for more details.

Functions can be also be executed and tested by creating unit tests. See Unit Testing for more information.

There are a number of predefined objects that are commonly used in code. See Objects Used in Code for a list of these objects.