Computer programs are written for machine reading. We have to write them in a certain format which will be compiled for the machine to understand. But often those written codes are not easy to follow for people other than programmers. In order to show those codes in an informal way so that humans can also understand, we prepare pseudocode. Though it is not an actual programming language code, pseudocode has similar structural conventions of a programming language. Since pseudocode does not run as a real program, there is no standard way of writing a pseudocode. We can follow our own way of writing a pseudocode.

Here is the pseudocode for our algorithm to find a book:

Algorithm FindABook(L,book_name) 
  Input: list of Books L & name of the search book_name 
  Output: False if not found or position of the book we are looking for. 

  if L.size = 0 return null 
  found := false 
  for each item in L, do 
    if item = book_name, then 
      found := position of the item 
  return found 

Now, let us examine the pseudocode we have written. We are supplying a list of books and a name that we are searching. We are running a foreach loop to iterate each of the books and matching with the book name we are searching. If it is found, we are returning the position of the book where we found it, false otherwise. So, we have written a pseudocode to find a book name from our book list. But what about the other remaining books? How do we continue our search till all books are found and placed on the right shelf?:

  Algorithm placeAllBooks 
    Input: list of Ordered Books OL, List of received books L 
    Output: nothing. 


    for each book_name in OL, do 
       if FindABook(L,book_name), then 
         remove the book from the list L 
         place it to the bookshelf 

Now we have the complete pseudocode for our algorithm of solving the book organization problem. Here, we are going through the list of ordered books and finding the book in the delivered section. If the book is found, we are removing it from the list and placing it to the right shelf.

This simple approach of writing pseudocode can help us solve more complex problems in a structured manner. Since pseudocodes are independent of programming languages and platforms, algorithms are expressed as pseudocode most of the time.