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srikanth soma
1,572 PointsReturn vs Print
I always confuse between print vs return how do I know when will be the right choice to use return and when will be the right choice to use print?
2 Answers
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 68,390 PointsThink of print as a way to display a value to the user or a log file. Use return to pass values to back to the calling code for additional programming use of the value.
srikanth soma
1,572 PointsIn other words, print doesn't store values whereas return stores value?
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 68,390 PointsAll functions and statements return a value that maybe used in other code. A function without an explicit return statement effectively gets a default return None automatically added.
Some statements return a value:
new_list = list(word) # returns a list which is pointed to by new_list
other_list = new_list.sort() # sorting happens "in place" so nothing is returned and other_list is pointed to None
A print statement has a return value of None. So a statement like:
return print("Hello")
Would also return None