imperative programming

In computer science, imperative programming is a programming paradigm of software that uses statements that change a process’s state. In much the same way that the imperative mood in natural languages expresses commands, an imperative program consists of commands for the computer to perform. Imperative programming focuses on describing how a program operates step by step (with general order of the steps being determined in source code by the placement of statements one below the other), rather than on high-level descriptions of its expected results.

The term is often used in contrast to declarative programming, which focuses on what the program should accomplish without specifying all the details of how the program should achieve the result.