return Statement¶
return None¶
Some functions return nothing (for example the print() function). To achieve this you can either return None, leave the return value blank after return, or put no return statement at all.
def none1():
return
def none2():
return None
def none3():
x = 2 #Needs code to work
type(none1())
NoneType
type(none2())
NoneType
type(none3())
NoneType
return Breaks Out of the Function¶
It was stated above that the return statement breaks out of the function. This means that anything that comes directly after a return inside the function body will not execute. Consider the following example to illustrate this:
def message():
print('This code will execute')
return
print('This code will not execute')
message()
This code will execute
It can be useful to use this feature of return to break out of a loop, or even to ignore the else or elif parts of an if statement.
For example, consider the function that checks if it’s argument is even or odd:
def is_even(value):
if value % 2 == 0:
return True
else:
return False
is_even(3)
False
is_even(6)
True
The else part of the function is unnecessary:
def is_even(value):
if value % 2 == 0:
return True
return False
is_even(3)
False