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Roland Shen
7,628 PointsI don't understand what return does
What does it mean by return something in the function? What does that return do and what's the point of it? All of this seems confusing to me still.
1 Answer
Luke Glazebrook
13,564 PointsHi Roland!
When something is returned from a function it can then be assigned to a variable or used in a conditional statement (such as an if statement). The code below assigns the return value of the method 'getUsername()' to the variable 'username'
String username = getUsername();
A return value is a way of getting a reply back from a method instead of it just running and returning nothing.
A good way to think of returns is like a phone call to a pizza shop! So if you phone the Pizza Shop think of this as running a method called 'phonePizzaShop()' and what this method, or phone call, will return is a pizza!
I hope this helped you out and don't hesitate to ask any more questions!
-Luke
Roland Shen
7,628 PointsThanks! But what's the difference between getting a return and just printing out a line that says the same thing as the return?
Luke Glazebrook
13,564 PointsNo problem!
Just printing out the value to the terminal without a return value doesn't let you set the value to a variable or use it use in conditional statements.
Roland Shen
7,628 PointsRoland Shen
7,628 PointsAnother part of this question is, isn't return something the same thing as printing it out with println? What's the difference if you can just use the print command rather than return?