lexical scope

programming (Or "static scope") In a lexically scoped

language, the scope of an identifier is fixed at compiletime to some region in the source code containing the

identifier's declaration. This means that an identifier is

only accessible within that region (including procedures

declared within it).

This contrasts with dynamic scope where the scope depends on

the nesting of procedure and function calls at run time.

Statically scoped languages differ as to whether the scope is

limited to the smallest block (including begin/end blocks)

containing the identifier's declaration (e.g. C, Perl) or

to whole function and procedure bodies (e.g. ?), or some

larger unit of code (e.g. ?). The former is known as staticnested scope.

(2001-09-07)