Understanding Parentheses in Programming: Grouping Expressions for Correct Evaluation

In programming, parentheses are used to group expressions and indicate that the contents within the parentheses should be evaluated first. This is called "parenthesizing" or "grouping".

For example, in the expression `2 + 3 * 4`, the multiplication operator `*` has higher precedence than the addition operator `+`. Without parentheses, this expression would be evaluated as `(2 + 3) * 4`, which is not what the programmer intended. To avoid this problem, we can use parentheses to group the expressions within them and ensure that they are evaluated in the correct order.

So, in the expression `2 + (3 * 4)`, the multiplication operator `*` has lower precedence than the addition operator `+`, and the expression is evaluated as `2 + 3 * 4`, which is what the programmer intended.

In summary, parentheses are used to group expressions and indicate that the contents within the parentheses should be evaluated first, allowing for more complex expressions to be written and evaluated correctly.