C#•10mo ago

✅ Newbie question - what exactly does return do?

If I have this piece of code... what exactly happens when the return statement is reached? I understand it exits the current function, but then what is the state of the programme?

6 Replies

Thinker•10mo ago

In this case, it just exits the method (or function, same thing) and returns back to the place you called the method at.

MODiX•10mo ago

Thinker

REPL Result: Success

Console.WriteLine("Hi!");
Print();
Console.WriteLine("Goodbye!");

void Print()
{
    Console.WriteLine("How are you?");
    return;
}

Console.WriteLine("Hi!");
Print();
Console.WriteLine("Goodbye!");

void Print()
{
    Console.WriteLine("How are you?");
    return;
}

Console Output

Hi!
How are you?
Goodbye!

Hi!
How are you?
Goodbye!

Compile: 599.862ms | Execution: 75.520ms | React with ❌ to remove this embed.

Thinker•10mo ago

Here you can see how, once the return; is reached, execution goes back to where the method was called. However return also has a second (arguably more important) usage: in your case the method NameInputExists() returns void - which essentially means that the method only does things like writing to the console or similar - but if you were to change that to int for example, now the method would have a return value. Take this method for example

int Add(int a, int b)
{
    return a + b;
}

int Add(int a, int b)
{
    return a + b;
}

This is a method called Add which has a couple of properties: it takes two parameters - a and b, both of which are integers -, it returns int which means that it should "give back" an integer to the caller, and the value it returns is the result of a + b. So you might use this method like this:

int x = 1;
int y = 5;
// Call the method with x and y as arguments.  
int z = Add(x, y);
// z now contains the return value of Add, i.e. a + b.
// We can print this value and show that it is, in fact, 6.
Console.WriteLine(z);

int x = 1;
int y = 5;
// Call the method with x and y as arguments.  
int z = Add(x, y);
// z now contains the return value of Add, i.e. a + b.
// We can print this value and show that it is, in fact, 6.
Console.WriteLine(z);

I hope that somewhat made sense

Emelie•10mo ago

great. Many thanks!!

Denis•10mo ago

$close

MODiX•10mo ago

Use the /close command to mark a forum thread as answered

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✅ Newbie question - what exactly does return do?