What would be the appropriate action for a declaration statement in programming?

A declaration statement in programming serves a fundamental role in defining the properties of variables or constants that will be used later in the code. When you declare a variable, you allocate a specific type and a name to that entity, informing the compiler or interpreter how to treat the data associated with it.

For example, if you declare a variable named age as an integer, you are communicating that this variable will hold whole number values. This is crucial for type safety and for ensuring that operations performed on the variable are appropriate. Additionally, constants are declared to maintain values that shouldn’t change throughout the execution of the program, enhancing stability and clarity in the code.

While the other options describe various functionalities in programming—like performing calculations, looping through values, or formatting data—they do not pertain to the act of declaring a variable or constant, which is specifically what a declaration statement accomplishes. Thus, declaring a variable or constant is the primary purpose of a declaration statement.