There are five basic elements of an expression:

Operands are values or text that the formula operates on. These may be actual values such as "4", or field names (including text or numeric fields).

Operators are mathematical symbols, text characters, or logical statements that indicate to the application what must be done with the operands in a formula. The scripting operators are similar to those in Microsoft Excel.

There are several types of operators:

You can use parentheses in complex formulas to determine the order in which you want formulas calculated. Operations within parentheses are executed first.

See Precedence in Evaluating Expressions.

Functions are snippets of code that perform specific tasks. Use them in expressions to manipulate data or filter records. The functions available are similar to the functions in Visual Basic.

Statements are standalone elements used to form programs. Statements often call functions and include internal components such as expressions.