implicit-and-explicit.md

Return Statements in Python

The Python return statement is a special statement that you can use inside a function or method to send the function's result back to the caller. A return statement consists of the return keyword, followed by an optional return value. The return value of a Python function can be any Python object.

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Explicit Return Statements

An explicit return statement immediately terminates a function's execution and sends the return value back to the caller code. To add an explicit return statement to a Python function, you need to use return followed by an optional return value.

Here's an example of an explicit return statement in a simple calculator function:

def add(a, b):
    return a + b

result = add(5, 3)
print(result)

Output

8

In this example, the add function explicitly returns the sum of A and B, which is then printed to the console.

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Implicit Return Statements

In Python, every function will always have a return value. Unlike other programming languages, there is no concept of a procedure or routine environment. If you don't explicitly use a return statement or specify a return value, Python will implicitly return a default value, which is always None.

Here's an example of an implicit return statement:

def greet(name):
    print(f"Hello, {name}!")

result = greet("Akshat")
print(result)

Output

Hello, Akshat!
None

In this example, the greet function does not have a return statement, so it returns None by default. This is demonstrated by the print(result) statement, which prints None.

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