Every method declared contains a method name, input parameters and return type. These 3 things comprise the method signature. The definition includes the body along with the method name, input parameters and return type.
The syntax for a method is
type methodname1(input-parameter-list)
{
method-body
}
Here
methodname1 specifies the method name,
input-parameter-list specifies the list of parameters and there data types,
type specifies the return type of the method. The
method-body includes the body or set of instructions which needs to be executed as part of the method.
- There could multiple input parameters for a method. Also, method can exist with out any parameters as well. i.e. method can have 0 or 1 or more parameters.
- The return type can be any of the data types like
int, short, double etc., If there is nothing to be returned from a method, then the return type is void. Which means no value will be returned from this method.
- For a method with return type not as
void, it should definitely have a return statement at the end of the method to return the value.
- A method can be called to initialize a variable, assign to an existing variable or called as part of an expression.
- There is no dependency between input parameters and return type. They could exist with out the other. So when we have input parameters, it is not necessary to have a return type and similarly when we have return type, it is not necessary to have parameters.
int add(int a, int b)
{
int result = a + b;
return result;
}
The method defined above adds two integer values and returns the sum as an integer. Here
add is the
methodname, the
parameters are
int a and
int b and the
int in the beginning of the method declaration is the
return type.
A method which does not take any parameters and does not return any value will look like this.
void printHello()
{
System.out.println("Hello");
}
Since the return type is void, we need not return any value, so the return statement is not required here.
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