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Java

Posted by Michael Bishara
Michael Bishara
1,911 Points

What does "return" actually do?

Please see the following snippet of code:

public String getColor() { return mColor; }

What does the "return" mean and what does it do? When would we use it?

Thank you

1 Answer

Daniel Babbev
Daniel Babbev
10,354 Points

Say you want to add A +B = C. To solve this you take A, add it to B and get the result, which is C. You, in computer's terms, return C.

Let A = 1 and B = 5. The computer takes 1, adds 5 and returns 6.

Basically, return is the result of the function.

In your case, the function returns the value of the mColor variable. This makes the mColor easily accessible from other classes.