Computer programming is the process of designing, writing, testing, debugging, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. This source code is written in one or more programming languages. The purpose of programming is to create a program that performs specific operations or exhibits a...
, the return type (or result type) defines and constrains the data type
Data type
In computer programming, a data type is a classification identifying one of various types of data, such as floating-point, integer, or Boolean, that determines the possible values for that type; the operations that can be done on values of that type; the meaning of the data; and the way values of...
In object-oriented programming, a method is a subroutine associated with a class. Methods define the behavior to be exhibited by instances of the associated class at program run time...
In computer science, a subroutine is a portion of code within a larger program that performs a specific task and is relatively independent of the remaining code....
. In many programming languages (especially those that are statically-typed, such as Java
Java (programming language)
Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...
C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
) the return type must be explicitly specified when declaring a function.
In computer science, an integer is a datum of integral data type, a data type which represents some finite subset of the mathematical integers. Integral data types may be of different sizes and may or may not be allowed to contain negative values....
. The program can therefore rely on the method returning a value of type int. Various mechanisms are used for the case where a subroutine does not return any value, e.g., a return type of void
Void type
The void type, in several programming languages derived from C and Algol68, is the type for the result of a function that returns normally, but does not provide a result value to its caller. Usually such functions are called for their side effects, such as performing some task or writing to their...
is used in some programming languages:
public void returnNothing
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
