# What's the output of this algorithm?

Given the question below:

Consider that, on the procedure below, the variable X is defined globally and the parameters of the vr function are passed by value

procedure vr(u,v) {
u = 2*u;
x = u+v;
u = u - 1;
}


Define the value of x in the end of the following:

x = 4;
y = 2;
vr(x,y);
print(x);


I always knew that parameters passed by value were actually a copy of the original value, but in this case i can't tell what scope is being used for the function.

I also would like to read more about cases like that. If you can, please leave any suggestive material so i can get more in depth of this subject.

I know that this is a very bad practice of naming variables and should be avoided, but in this case i guess it was intentional for the problem.

You can unroll the procedure:

x = 4;
y = 2;
u = x;
v = y;
u = 2*u;
x = u+v;
u = u-1;
print x;


This is semantically equivalent to your program.

Once you copy the value of x to u, the link between the two disappears. This is in contrast to references in C++ or mutable objects in python, which are really pointers; if u were a reference (i.e., if parameters were passed by reference), then the assignment u = x would have identified the two variables as pointing at the same location in memory. As it is, u is just a value (since parameters are passed by value), and so this linkage is absent.