For information about the RETURN Statement, see the section titled Returning Values from Functions.
The optional Return Data Type Statement of a function (if used), follows the optional Scope Statement (if used), and precedes the FUNCTION Statement declaration in Cicode.
The return data type of a function can be only one of six possible data types: INT (32 bits), REAL (64 bits), STRING (255 bytes), OBJECT (32 bits), QUALITY or TIMESTAMP (64 bits). If no Return Data Type Statement is declared, the function will not be able to return any type of data.
INT, REAL, STRING, OBJECT, QUALITY and TIMESTAMP are Cicode keywords and as such, are reserved.
Note: In the following function syntax example, every placeholder shown inside arrow brackets ( <placeholder> ) should be replaced in the actual code with the value of the item that it describes. The arrow brackets and the word they contain should not be included in the statement, and are shown only for your information.
To declare the data type that will be returned to the calling code, prefix the FUNCTION Statement with one of the Cicode data type keywords, in the <ReturnDataType> placeholder in the following example.
<ReturnDataType>
FUNCTION
FunctionName ( <Arguments> )
<Statement> ;
<Statement> ;
<Statement> ;
END
The following example returns an integer of value 5:
INT
FUNCTION
FunctionName ( <Arguments> )
<Statement> ;
INT Status = 5;
<Statement> ;
RETURN Status;
END
If the RETURN Statement within the function encounters a different data type to that declared in the return data type statement, the value is converted to the declared return data type.
In the example below, the variable Status is declared as a real number within the
function. However, Status is
converted to an integer when it is returned to the caller, because
the data type of the return was declared as an integer type in the
return data type statement:
INT ! declare return value as integer
FUNCTION
FunctionName ( <Arguments> )
<Statement> ;
REAL Status = 5; ! declare variable as a REAL number
<Statement> ;
RETURN Status; ! returned as an integer number
END
If you omit the return data type, the function does not return a value.