What is the action of directing a program to execute or reference a specific procedure called?

The action of directing a program to execute or reference a specific procedure is known as a procedure call. This term specifically refers to the statement or command within the code that causes the program to jump to the location in memory where the specified procedure is defined. When the procedure is called, the program executes the instructions defined in that procedure until it reaches an end point or returns control to the point from which it was called.

A procedure call serves the purpose of modularizing code, making it more organized and reusable, as procedures can be invoked multiple times from different points in a program. This reduces redundancy and improves maintainability.

While method invocation is a term that can refer to calling a specific method in object-oriented programming, it is a more specialized term related to the context of objects and classes. Function declaration typically refers to the process of defining a function and its parameters, rather than executing it. Subroutine execution is a broader term that can encompass procedure calls but does not specifically define the act of calling a subroutine. Therefore, procedure call is the most precise and widely applicable term for this action in programming.