What is the difference between execution and evaluation?

Question

We say that expresssions "evaluate" values and statement orders computer to "execute". But to me it seems like same terminology. What is the difference between execution and evaluation in C?

Answer 1

It's just a matter of linguistics. Expressions are evaluated, statements are executed. In both cases we can say that "something gets done", and I wouldn't worry too much about the difference.

To clarify: roughly, a statement is a line of code, and an expression is what you can find between brackets in an if() or while(), or on the right side of an equal sign.

For example, int x = 2 + 3; is a statement that declares a variable x and assigns to it the result of the expression 2 + 3, that is, 5.