HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

In
computer programming Computer programming is the process of performing a particular computation (or more generally, accomplishing a specific computing result), usually by designing and building an executable computer program. Programming involves tasks such as anal ...
, a function or subroutine is a sequence of program instructions that performs a specific task, packaged as a unit. This unit can then be used in programs wherever that particular task should be performed. Functions may be defined within
program Program, programme, programmer, or programming may refer to: Business and management * Program management, the process of managing several related projects * Time management * Program, a part of planning Arts and entertainment Audio * Programm ...
s, or separately in libraries that can be used by many programs. In different
programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...
s, a function may be called a routine, subprogram, subroutine, method, or procedure. Technically, these terms all have different definitions, and the nomenclature varies from language to language. The generic
umbrella term In linguistics, semantics, general semantics, and ontologies, hyponymy () is a semantic relation between a hyponym denoting a subtype and a hypernym or hyperonym (sometimes called umbrella term or blanket term) denoting a supertype. In othe ...
''callable unit'' is sometimes used. A function is often coded so that it can be started several times and from several places during one execution of the program, including from other functions, and then branch back (''
return Return may refer to: In business, economics, and finance * Return on investment (ROI), the financial gain after an expense. * Rate of return, the financial term for the profit or loss derived from an investment * Tax return, a blank document or t ...
'') to the next instruction after the ''call'', once the function's task is done. The idea of a subroutine was initially conceived by John Mauchly during his work on ENIAC, and recorded in a January 1947 Harvard symposium on "Preparation of Problems for EDVAC-type Machines". Maurice Wilkes, David Wheeler, and Stanley Gill are generally credited with the formal invention of this concept, which they termed a ''closed sub-routine'', contrasted with an ''open subroutine'' or macro. However,
Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical ...
had discussed subroutines in a paper of 1945 on design proposals for the NPL ACE, going so far as to invent the concept of a return address stack. Functions are a powerful programming tool, and the
syntax In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituenc ...
of many programming languages includes support for writing and using subroutines. Judicious use of functions (for example, through the structured programming approach) will often substantially reduce the cost of developing and maintaining a large program, while increasing its quality and reliability. Functions, often collected into libraries, are an important mechanism for sharing and trading software. The discipline of
object-oriented programming Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of "objects", which can contain data and code. The data is in the form of fields (often known as attributes or ''properties''), and the code is in the form of ...
is based on
objects Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ai ...
and methods (which are functions attached to these objects or object classes).


Main concepts

The content of a function is its body, which is the piece of program code that is executed when the function is called or invoked. A function may be written so that it expects to obtain one or more data values from the calling program (to replace its parameters or formal parameters). The calling program provides actual values for these parameters, called arguments. Different programming languages may use different conventions for passing arguments: A function call may also have
side effects In medicine, a side effect is an effect, whether therapeutic or adverse, that is secondary to the one intended; although the term is predominantly employed to describe adverse effects, it can also apply to beneficial, but unintended, consequenc ...
such as modifying data structures in a
computer memory In computing, memory is a device or system that is used to store information for immediate use in a computer or related computer hardware and digital electronic devices. The term ''memory'' is often synonymous with the term '' primary storag ...
, reading from or writing to a peripheral device, creating a file, halting the program or the machine, or even delaying the program's execution for a specified time. A subprogram with side effects may return different results each time it is called, even if it is called with the same arguments. An example is a random number function, available in many languages, that returns a different pseudo-random number each time it is called. The widespread use of functions with side effects is a characteristic of
imperative programming In computer science, imperative programming is a programming paradigm of software that uses statements that change a program's state. In much the same way that the imperative mood in natural languages expresses commands, an imperative program ...
languages. A function can be coded so that it may call itself recursively, at one or more places, to perform its task. This method allows direct implementation of functions defined by
mathematical induction Mathematical induction is a method for proving that a statement ''P''(''n'') is true for every natural number ''n'', that is, that the infinitely many cases ''P''(0), ''P''(1), ''P''(2), ''P''(3), ...  all hold. Informal metaphors help ...
and recursive divide and conquer algorithms. A function whose purpose is to compute one boolean-valued function (that is, to answer a yes/no question) is sometimes called a predicate. In logic programming languages, often all functions are called predicates, since they primarily determine success or failure. A function that returns no value or returns a null value is sometimes called a procedure. Procedures usually modify their arguments and are a core part of procedural programming.


Terminology

A ''subroutine'' is a function that doesn't return a value. The primary purpose of functions is to break up complicated computations into meaningful chunks and name them. The function may return a computed value to its caller (its
return value In computer programming, a return statement causes execution to leave the current subroutine and resume at the point in the code immediately after the instruction which called the subroutine, known as its return address. The return address is s ...
), or provide various result values or output parameters. Indeed, a common use of functions is to implement mathematical functions, in which the purpose of the function is purely to compute one or more results whose values are entirely determined by the arguments passed to the function. (Examples might include computing the
logarithm In mathematics, the logarithm is the inverse function to exponentiation. That means the logarithm of a number  to the base  is the exponent to which must be raised, to produce . For example, since , the ''logarithm base'' 10 ...
of a number or the
determinant In mathematics, the determinant is a scalar value that is a function of the entries of a square matrix. It characterizes some properties of the matrix and the linear map represented by the matrix. In particular, the determinant is nonzero if a ...
of a
matrix Matrix most commonly refers to: * ''The Matrix'' (franchise), an American media franchise ** '' The Matrix'', a 1999 science-fiction action film ** "The Matrix", a fictional setting, a virtual reality environment, within ''The Matrix'' (franchi ...
.) In some languages the syntax for a procedure that returns a value is essentially the same as the syntax for a procedure that does not return a value, except for the absence of, e.g., RETURNS clause. In some languages a procedure may dynamically choose to return with or without a value, depending on its arguments.


Language support

High-level programming language In computer science, a high-level programming language is a programming language with strong abstraction from the details of the computer. In contrast to low-level programming languages, it may use natural language ''elements'', be easier to u ...
s usually include specific constructs to: * Delimit the part of the program (body) that makes up the function * Assign an identifier (name) to the function * Specify the names and
data type In computer science and computer programming, a data type (or simply type) is a set of possible values and a set of allowed operations on it. A data type tells the compiler or interpreter how the programmer intends to use the data. Most progra ...
s of its parameters and return values * Provide a private naming scope for its temporary variables * Identify variables outside the function that are accessible within it * Call the function * Provide values to its parameters * The main program contains the address of the subprogram * The subprogram contains the address of the next instruction of the function call in the main program * Specify the return values from within its body *
Return Return may refer to: In business, economics, and finance * Return on investment (ROI), the financial gain after an expense. * Rate of return, the financial term for the profit or loss derived from an investment * Tax return, a blank document or t ...
to the calling program * Dispose of the values returned by a call * Handle any exceptional conditions encountered during the call * Package functions into a
module Module, modular and modularity may refer to the concept of modularity. They may also refer to: Computing and engineering * Modular design, the engineering discipline of designing complex devices using separately designed sub-components * Modul ...
,
library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vi ...
,
object Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ...
, or
class Class or The Class may refer to: Common uses not otherwise categorized * Class (biology), a taxonomic rank * Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects * Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used differently ...
Some
programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...
s, such as
Pascal Pascal, Pascal's or PASCAL may refer to: People and fictional characters * Pascal (given name), including a list of people with the name * Pascal (surname), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name ** Blaise Pascal, Frenc ...
, Fortran,
Ada Ada may refer to: Places Africa * Ada Foah, a town in Ghana * Ada (Ghana parliament constituency) * Ada, Osun, a town in Nigeria Asia * Ada, Urmia, a village in West Azerbaijan Province, Iran * Ada, Karaman, a village in Karaman Province, T ...
and many dialects of BASIC, distinguish between functions or function subprograms, which provide an explicit return value to the calling program, and subroutines or procedures, which do not. In those languages, function calls are normally embedded in expressions (e.g., a sqrt function may be called as y = z + sqrt(x)). Procedure calls either behave syntactically as statements (e.g., a print procedure may be called as if x > 0 then print(x) or are explicitly invoked by a statement such as CALL or GOSUB (e.g., call print(x)). Other languages, such as C and Lisp, do not distinguish between functions and subroutines. In strictly
functional programming In computer science, functional programming is a programming paradigm where programs are constructed by applying and composing functions. It is a declarative programming paradigm in which function definitions are trees of expressions tha ...
languages such as Haskell, subprograms can have no
side effects In medicine, a side effect is an effect, whether therapeutic or adverse, that is secondary to the one intended; although the term is predominantly employed to describe adverse effects, it can also apply to beneficial, but unintended, consequenc ...
, which means that various internal states of the program will not change. Functions will always return the same result if repeatedly called with the same arguments. Such languages typically only support functions that return a value, since functions that do not return a value have no use unless they can cause a side effect. In
programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...
s such as C, C++, and C#, functions that return a value and functions that return no value are both called "functions" (not to be confused with mathematical functions or
functional programming In computer science, functional programming is a programming paradigm where programs are constructed by applying and composing functions. It is a declarative programming paradigm in which function definitions are trees of expressions tha ...
, which are different concepts). A language's
compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs tha ...
will usually translate procedure calls and returns into machine instructions according to a well-defined calling convention, so that functions can be compiled separately from the programs that call them. The instruction sequences corresponding to call and return statements are called the procedure's prologue and epilogue.


Advantages

The advantages of breaking a program into functions include: * Decomposing a complex programming task into simpler steps: this is one of the two main tools of structured programming, along with data structures * Reducing duplicate code within a program * Enabling reuse of code across multiple programs * Dividing a large programming task among various programmers or various stages of a project * Hiding implementation details from users of the function * Improving readability of code by replacing a block of code with a function call where
descriptive
function name serves to describe the block of code. This makes the calling code concise and readable even if the function is not meant to be reused. * Improving traceability (i.e. most languages offer ways to obtain the call trace which includes the names of the involved functions and perhaps even more information such as file names and line numbers); by not decomposing the code into functions, debugging would be severely impaired


Disadvantages

Compared to using in-line code, invoking a function imposes some computational overhead in the call mechanism. A function typically requires standard housekeeping code – both at the entry to, and exit from, the function ( function prologue and epilogue – usually saving general purpose registers and return address as a minimum).


History

The idea of a subroutine was worked out after computing machines had already existed for some time. The arithmetic and conditional jump instructions were planned ahead of time and have changed relatively little, but the special instructions used for procedure calls have changed greatly over the years. The earliest computers and microprocessors, such as the Manchester Baby and the RCA 1802, did not have a single subroutine call instruction. Subroutines could be implemented, but they required programmers to use the call sequence—a series of instructions—at each
call site In programming, a spot of a function or subroutine is the location (line of code) where the function is called (or may be called, through dynamic dispatch). A call site is where zero or more arguments are passed to the function, and zero or more re ...
. Subroutines were implemented in
Konrad Zuse Konrad Ernst Otto Zuse (; 22 June 1910 – 18 December 1995) was a German civil engineer, pioneering computer scientist, inventor and businessman. His greatest achievement was the world's first programmable computer; the functional program- ...
's Z4 in 1945. In 1945,
Alan M. Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical com ...
used the terms "bury" and "unbury" as a means of calling and returning from subroutines. (NB. Presented on 1946-03-19 before the Executive Committee of the National Physical Laboratory (Great Britain).) (11 pages) In January 1947 John Mauchly presented general notes at 'A Symposium of Large Scale Digital Calculating Machinery' under the joint sponsorship of Harvard University and the Bureau of Ordnance, United States Navy. Here he discusses serial and parallel operation suggesting Kay McNulty had worked closely with John Mauchly on the ENIAC team and developed an idea for subroutines for the ENIAC computer she was programming during World War II. She and the other ENIAC programmers used the subroutines to help calculate missile trajectories. Goldstine and von Neumann wrote a paper dated 16 August 1948 discussing the use of subroutines. Some very early computers and microprocessors, such as the IBM 1620, the Intel 4004 and Intel 8008, and the PIC microcontrollers, have a single-instruction subroutine call that uses a dedicated hardware stack to store return addresses—such hardware supports only a few levels of subroutine nesting, but can support recursive subroutines. Machines before the mid-1960s—such as the UNIVAC I, the PDP-1, and the IBM 1130—typically use a calling convention which saved the instruction counter in the first memory location of the called subroutine. This allows arbitrarily deep levels of subroutine nesting but does not support recursive subroutines. The IBM System/360 had a subroutine call instruction that placed the saved instruction counter value into a general-purpose register; this can be used to support arbitrarily deep subroutine nesting and recursive subroutines. The PDP-11 (1970) is one of the first computers with a stack-pushing subroutine call instruction; this feature also supports both arbitrarily deep subroutine nesting and recursive subroutines.
Guy Lewis Steele Jr. Guy Lewis Steele Jr. (; born October 2, 1954) is an American computer scientist who has played an important role in designing and documenting several computer programming languages and technical standards. Biography Steele was born in Missouri ...
AI Memo AI is artificial intelligence, intellectual ability in machines and robots. Ai, AI or A.I. may also refer to: Animals * Ai (chimpanzee), an individual experimental subject in Japan * Ai (sloth) or the pale-throated sloth, northern Amazonian ma ...
443
'Debunking the "Expensive Procedure Call" Myth; or, Procedure call implementations considered harmful"
Section "C. Why Procedure Calls Have a Bad Reputation".


Language support

In the very early assemblers, subroutine support was limited. Subroutines were not explicitly separated from each other or from the main program, and indeed the source code of a subroutine could be interspersed with that of other subprograms. Some assemblers would offer predefined macros to generate the call and return sequences. By the 1960s, assemblers usually had much more sophisticated support for both inline and separately assembled subroutines that could be linked together. One of the first programming languages to support user-written subroutines and functions was FORTRAN II. The IBM FORTRAN II compiler was released in 1958. ALGOL 58 and other early programming languages also supported procedural programming.


Libraries

Even with this cumbersome approach, subroutines proved very useful. They allowed the use of the same code in many different programs. Memory was a very scarce resource on early computers, and subroutines allowed significant savings in the size of programs. Many early computers loaded the program instructions into memory from a
punched paper tape Five- and eight-hole punched paper tape Paper tape reader on the Harwell computer with a small piece of five-hole tape connected in a circle – creating a physical program loop Punched tape or perforated paper tape is a form of data storage ...
. Each subroutine could then be provided by a separate piece of tape, loaded or spliced before or after the main program (or "mainline"); and the same subroutine tape could then be used by many different programs. A similar approach applied in computers that used punched cards for their main input. The name ''subroutine library'' originally meant a library, in the literal sense, which kept indexed collections of tapes or card-decks for collective use.


Return by indirect jump

To remove the need for self-modifying code, computer designers eventually provided an '' indirect jump'' instruction, whose operand, instead of being the return address itself, was the location of a variable or processor register containing the return address. On those computers, instead of modifying the function's return jump, the calling program would store the return address in a variable so that when the function completed, it would execute an indirect jump that would direct execution to the location given by the predefined variable.


Jump to subroutine

Another advance was the ''jump to subroutine'' instruction, which combined the saving of the return address with the calling jump, thereby minimizing overhead significantly. In the IBM System/360, for example, the branch instructions BAL or BALR, designed for procedure calling, would save the return address in a processor register specified in the instruction, by convention register 14. To return, the subroutine had only to execute an indirect branch instruction (BR) through that register. If the subroutine needed that register for some other purpose (such as calling another subroutine), it would save the register's contents to a private memory location or a register
stack Stack may refer to: Places * Stack Island, an island game reserve in Bass Strait, south-eastern Australia, in Tasmania’s Hunter Island Group * Blue Stack Mountains, in Co. Donegal, Ireland People * Stack (surname) (including a list of people ...
. In systems such as the HP 2100, the JSB instruction would perform a similar task, except that the return address was stored in the memory location that was the target of the branch. Execution of the procedure would actually begin at the next memory location. In the HP 2100 assembly language, one would write, for example ... JSB MYSUB (Calls subroutine MYSUB.) BB ... (Will return here after MYSUB is done.) to call a subroutine called MYSUB from the main program. The subroutine would be coded as MYSUB NOP (Storage for MYSUB's return address.) AA ... (Start of MYSUB's body.) ... JMP MYSUB,I (Returns to the calling program.) The JSB instruction placed the address of the NEXT instruction (namely, BB) into the location specified as its operand (namely, MYSUB), and then branched to the NEXT location after that (namely, AA = MYSUB + 1). The subroutine could then return to the main program by executing the indirect jump JMP MYSUB, I which branched to the location stored at location MYSUB. Compilers for Fortran and other languages could easily make use of these instructions when available. This approach supported multiple levels of calls; however, since the return address, parameters, and return values of a subroutine were assigned fixed memory locations, it did not allow for recursive calls. Incidentally, a similar method was used by Lotus 1-2-3, in the early 1980s, to discover the recalculation dependencies in a spreadsheet. Namely, a location was reserved in each cell to store the ''return'' address. Since circular references are not allowed for natural recalculation order, this allows a tree walk without reserving space for a stack in memory, which was very limited on small computers such as the IBM PC.


Call stack

Most modern implementations of a function call use a
call stack In computer science, a call stack is a stack data structure that stores information about the active subroutines of a computer program. This kind of stack is also known as an execution stack, program stack, control stack, run-time stack, or mac ...
, a special case of the stack data structure, to implement function calls and returns. Each procedure call creates a new entry, called a ''stack frame'', at the top of the stack; when the procedure returns, its stack frame is deleted from the stack, and its space may be used for other procedure calls. Each stack frame contains the ''private data'' of the corresponding call, which typically includes the procedure's parameters and internal variables, and the return address. The call sequence can be implemented by a sequence of ordinary instructions (an approach still used in reduced instruction set computing (RISC) and very long instruction word (VLIW) architectures), but many traditional machines designed since the late 1960s have included special instructions for that purpose. The call stack is usually implemented as a contiguous area of memory. It is an arbitrary design choice whether the bottom of the stack is the lowest or highest address within this area, so that the stack may grow forwards or backwards in memory; however, many architectures chose the latter. Some designs, notably some
Forth Forth or FORTH may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''forth'' magazine, an Internet magazine * ''Forth'' (album), by The Verve, 2008 * ''Forth'', a 2011 album by Proto-Kaw * Radio Forth, a group of independent local radio stations in Scotla ...
implementations, used two separate stacks, one mainly for control information (like return addresses and loop counters) and the other for data. The former was, or worked like, a call stack and was only indirectly accessible to the programmer through other language constructs while the latter was more directly accessible. When stack-based procedure calls were first introduced, an important motivation was to save precious memory. With this scheme, the compiler does not have to reserve separate space in memory for the private data (parameters, return address, and local variables) of each procedure. At any moment, the stack contains only the private data of the calls that are currently ''active'' (namely, which have been called but haven't returned yet). Because of the ways in which programs were usually assembled from libraries, it was (and still is) not uncommon to find programs that include thousands of functions, of which only a handful are active at any given moment. For such programs, the call stack mechanism could save significant amounts of memory. Indeed, the call stack mechanism can be viewed as the earliest and simplest method for
automatic memory management In computer science, garbage collection (GC) is a form of automatic memory management. The ''garbage collector'' attempts to reclaim memory which was allocated by the program, but is no longer referenced; such memory is called ''garbage''. ...
. However, another advantage of the call stack method is that it allows recursive function calls, since each nested call to the same procedure gets a separate instance of its private data. In a multi-threaded environment, there is generally more than one stack. An environment that fully supports coroutines or lazy evaluation may use data structures other than stacks to store their activation records.


Delayed stacking

One disadvantage of the call stack mechanism is the increased cost of a procedure call and its matching return. The extra cost includes incrementing and decrementing the stack pointer (and, in some architectures, checking for stack overflow), and accessing the local variables and parameters by frame-relative addresses, instead of absolute addresses. The cost may be realized in increased execution time, or increased processor complexity, or both. This overhead is most obvious and objectionable in ''leaf procedures'' or ''leaf functions'', which return without making any procedure calls themselves. To reduce that overhead, many modern compilers try to delay the use of a call stack until it is really needed. For example, the call of a procedure ''P'' may store the return address and parameters of the called procedure in certain processor registers, and transfer control to the procedure's body by a simple jump. If the procedure ''P'' returns without making any other call, the call stack is not used at all. If ''P'' needs to call another procedure ''Q'', it will then use the call stack to save the contents of any registers (such as the return address) that will be needed after ''Q'' returns.


Examples


C and C++

In the C and C++ programming languages, subprograms are termed ''functions'' (further classified as ''member functions'' when associated with a
class Class or The Class may refer to: Common uses not otherwise categorized * Class (biology), a taxonomic rank * Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects * Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used differently ...
, or ''free functions'' when not). These languages use the special keyword void to indicate that a function does not return any value. Note that C/C++ functions can have side-effects, including modifying any variables whose addresses are passed as parameters. Examples: void Function1() The function does not return a value and has to be called as a stand-alone function, e.g., Function1(); int Function2() This function returns a result (the number 5), and the call can be part of an expression, e.g., x + Function2() char Function3(int number) This function converts a number between 0 and 6 into the initial letter of the corresponding day of the week, namely 0 to 'S', 1 to 'M', ..., 6 to 'S'. The result of calling it might be assigned to a variable, e.g., num_day = Function3(number);. void Function4(int* pointer_to_var) This function does not return a value but modifies the variable whose address is passed as the parameter; it would be called with Function4(&variable_to_increment);.


BASIC dialects


Microsoft Small Basic

Example() ' Calls the subroutine Sub Example ' Begins the subroutine TextWindow.WriteLine("This is an example of a subroutine in Microsoft Small Basic.") ' What the subroutine does EndSub ' Ends the subroutine In the example above, Example() calls the subroutine. To define the actual subroutine, the Sub keyword must be used, with the subroutine name following Sub. After content has followed, EndSub must be typed.


Visual Basic (classic)

In the Visual Basic (classic) language, subprograms are termed ''functions'' or ''subs'' (or ''methods'' when associated with a class). Visual Basic 6 uses various terms called ''types'' to define what is being passed as a parameter. By default, an unspecified variable is registered as a variant type and can be passed as ''ByRef'' (default) or ''ByVal''. Also, when a function or sub is declared, it is given a public, private, or friend designation, which determines whether it can be accessed outside the module or project that it was declared in. * By value yVal'' – a way of passing the value of an argument to a procedure by passing a copy of the value, instead of passing the address. As a result, the variable's actual value can't be changed by the procedure to which it is passed. * By reference yRef'' – a way of passing the value of an argument to a procedure by passing an address of the variable, instead of passing a copy of its value. This allows the procedure to access the actual variable. As a result, the variable's actual value can be changed by the procedure to which it is passed. Unless otherwise specified, arguments are passed by reference. * Public (optional) – indicates that the function procedure is accessible to all other procedures in all modules. If used in a module that contains an Option Private, the procedure is not available outside the project. * Private (optional) – indicates that the function procedure is accessible only to other procedures in the module where it is declared. * Friend (optional) – used only in a class module. Indicates that the Function procedure is visible throughout the project, but not visible to a controller of an instance of an object. Private Function Function1() ' Some Code Here End Function The function does not return a value and has to be called as a stand-alone function, e.g., Function1 Private Function Function2() as Integer Function2 = 5 End Function This function returns a result (the number 5), and the call can be part of an expression, e.g., x + Function2() Private Function Function3(ByVal intValue as Integer) as String Dim strArray(6) as String strArray = Array("M", "T", "W", "T", "F", "S", "S") Function3 = strArray(intValue) End Function This function converts a number between 0 and 6 into the initial letter of the corresponding day of the week, namely 0 to 'M', 1 to 'T', ..., 6 to 'S'. The result of calling it might be assigned to a variable, e.g., num_day = Function3(number). Private Function Function4(ByRef intValue as Integer) intValue = intValue + 1 End Function This function does not return a value but modifies the variable whose address is passed as the parameter; it would be called with "Function4(variable_to_increment)".


PL/I

In PL/I a called procedure may be passed a '' descriptor'' providing information about the argument, such as string lengths and array bounds. This allows the procedure to be more general and eliminates the need for the programmer to pass such information. By default PL/I passes arguments by reference. A (trivial) function to change the sign of each element of a two-dimensional array might look like:
change_sign: procedure(array);
  declare array(*,*) float;
  array = -array;
end change_sign;
This could be called with various arrays as follows:
/* first array bounds from -5 to +10 and 3 to 9 */
declare array1 (-5:10, 3:9)float;
/* second array bounds from 1 to 16 and 1 to 16 */
declare array2 (16,16) float;
call change_sign(array1);
call change_sign(array2);


Python

In Python, the keyword def is used to define a function. The statements that form the body of the function must either continue on the same line or start on the next line and be indented. The following example program prints "Hello world!" followed by "Wikipedia" on the next line. def simple_function(): print('Hello world!') print('Wikipedia') simple_function()


Local variables, recursion and reentrancy

A subprogram may find it useful to make use of a certain amount of ''scratch'' space; that is,
memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remember ...
used during the execution of that subprogram to hold intermediate results. Variables stored in this scratch space are termed ''local variables'', and the scratch space is termed an ''activation record''. An activation record typically has a return address that tells it where to pass control back to when the subprogram finishes. A subprogram may have any number and nature of call sites. If recursion is supported, a subprogram may even call itself, causing its execution to suspend while another ''nested'' execution of the same subprogram occurs.
Recursion Recursion (adjective: ''recursive'') occurs when a thing is defined in terms of itself or of its type. Recursion is used in a variety of disciplines ranging from linguistics to logic. The most common application of recursion is in mathematic ...
is a useful means to simplify some complex algorithms and break down complex problems. Recursive languages generally provide a new copy of local variables on each call. If the programmer desires the value of local variables to stay the same between calls, they can be declared ''static'' in some languages, or global values or common areas can be used. Here is an example of a recursive function in C/C++ to find Fibonacci numbers: int Fib(int n) Early languages like Fortran did not initially support recursion because variables were statically allocated, as well as the location for the return address. Early computer instruction sets made storing return addresses and variables on a stack difficult. Machines with index registers or general-purpose registers, e.g., CDC 6000 series, PDP-6, GE 635, System/360,
UNIVAC 1100 series The UNIVAC 1100/2200 series is a series of compatible 36-bit computer systems, beginning with the UNIVAC 1107 in 1962, initially made by Sperry Rand. The series continues to be supported today by Unisys Corporation as the ClearPath Dorado Series. ...
, could use one of those registers as a stack pointer. Modern languages after ALGOL such as PL/I and C almost invariably use a stack, usually supported by most modern computer instruction sets to provide a fresh activation record for every execution of a subprogram. That way, the nested execution is free to modify its local variables without concern for the effect on other suspended executions in progress. As nested calls accumulate, a
call stack In computer science, a call stack is a stack data structure that stores information about the active subroutines of a computer program. This kind of stack is also known as an execution stack, program stack, control stack, run-time stack, or mac ...
structure is formed, consisting of one activation record for each suspended subprogram. In fact, this stack structure is virtually ubiquitous, and so activation records are commonly termed '' stack frames''. Some languages such as
Pascal Pascal, Pascal's or PASCAL may refer to: People and fictional characters * Pascal (given name), including a list of people with the name * Pascal (surname), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name ** Blaise Pascal, Frenc ...
, PL/I, and
Ada Ada may refer to: Places Africa * Ada Foah, a town in Ghana * Ada (Ghana parliament constituency) * Ada, Osun, a town in Nigeria Asia * Ada, Urmia, a village in West Azerbaijan Province, Iran * Ada, Karaman, a village in Karaman Province, T ...
also support nested functions, which are functions callable only within the
scope Scope or scopes may refer to: People with the surname * Jamie Scope (born 1986), English footballer * John T. Scopes (1900–1970), central figure in the Scopes Trial regarding the teaching of evolution Arts, media, and entertainment * Cinema ...
of an outer (parent) function. Inner functions have access to the local variables of the outer function that called them. This is accomplished by storing extra context information within the activation record, also termed a ''display''. If a subprogram can be executed properly even when another execution of the same subprogram is already in progress, that subprogram is said to be ''
reentrant Reentrant or re-entrant can refer to: *Re-entrant (landform), the low ground formed between two hill spurs. *Reentrancy (computing) in computer programming * Reentrant mutex in computer science *Reentry (neural circuitry) in neuroscience * Salien ...
''. A recursive subprogram must be reentrant. Reentrant subprograms are also useful in multi-threaded situations since multiple threads can call the same subprogram without fear of interfering with each other. In the IBM CICS transaction processing system, ''quasi-reentrant'' was a slightly less restrictive, but similar, requirement for application programs that were shared by many threads.


Overloading

In strongly typed languages, it is sometimes desirable to have a number of functions with the same name, but operating on different types of data, or with different parameter profiles. For example, a square root function might be defined to operate on reals, complex values or matrices. The algorithm to be used in each case is different, and the return result may be different. By writing three separate functions with the same name, the programmer has the convenience of not having to remember different names for each type of data. Further, if a subtype can be defined for the reals, to separate positive and negative reals, two functions can be written for the reals, one to return a real when the parameter is positive, and another to return a complex value when the parameter is negative. In
object-oriented programming Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of "objects", which can contain data and code. The data is in the form of fields (often known as attributes or ''properties''), and the code is in the form of ...
, when a series of functions with the same name can accept different parameter profiles or parameters of different types, each of the functions is said to be overloaded. Here is an example of function overloading in C++, demonstrating the implementation of two functions with the same name (Area) but different parameters: #include double Area(double h, double w) /* The first Area function is for finding the area of a rectangle, * so it accepts two numbers as parameters, for the height and width. */ double Area(double r) /* The second Area function is for finding the area of a circle, * so it only accepts one number as a parameter, for the radius. */ int main() As another example, a function might construct an
object Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ...
that will accept directions, and trace its path to these points on screen. There are a plethora of parameters that could be passed in to the constructor (colour of the trace, starting x and y co-ordinates, trace speed). If the programmer wanted the constructor to be able to accept only the color parameter, then he could call another constructor that accepts only color, which in turn calls the constructor with all the parameters passing in a set of ''default values'' for all the other parameters (X and Y would generally be centered on screen or placed at the origin, and the speed would be set to another value of the coder's choosing). PL/I has the GENERIC attribute to define a generic name for a set of entry references called with different types of arguments. Example:
DECLARE gen_name GENERIC(
                    name  WHEN(FIXED BINARY),
                    flame  WHEN(FLOAT),
                    pathname OTHERWISE 
                         );
Multiple argument definitions may be specified for each entry. A call to "gen_name" will result in a call to "name" when the argument is FIXED BINARY, "flame" when FLOAT", etc. If the argument matches none of the choices "pathname" will be called.


Closures

A '' closure'' is a subprogram together with the values of some of its variables captured from the environment in which it was created. Closures were a notable feature of the Lisp programming language, introduced by John McCarthy. Depending on the implementation, closures can serve as a mechanism for side-effects.


Conventions

A wide number of conventions for the coding of functions have been developed. Pertaining to their naming, many developers have adopted the approach that the name of a function should be a
verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...
when it does a certain task, and
adjective In linguistics, an adjective ( abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ...
when it makes some inquiry, and a
noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, ...
when it is used to substitute variables. Some programmers suggest that a function should perform only one task, and if a function does perform more than one task, it should be split up into more functions. They argue that functions are key components in code maintenance, and their roles in the program must remain distinct. Proponents of modular programming (modularizing code) advocate that each function should have minimal dependency on other pieces of code. For example, the use of global variables is generally deemed unwise by advocates for this perspective, because it adds tight coupling between the function and these global variables. If such coupling is not necessary, their advice is to refactor functions to accept passed parameters instead. However, increasing the number of parameters passed to functions can affect code readability.


Return codes

Besides its ''main'' or ''normal'' effect, a subroutine may need to inform the calling program about ''exceptional'' conditions that may have occurred during its execution. In some languages and programming standards, this is often done through a '' return code'', an integer value placed by the subprogram in some standard location, which encodes the normal and exceptional conditions. In the IBM System/360, where return code was expected from the subroutine, the return value was often designed to be a multiple of 4—so that it could be used as a direct
branch table In computer programming, a branch table or jump table is a method of transferring program control ( branching) to another part of a program (or a different program that may have been dynamically loaded) using a table of branch or jump instruction ...
index into a branch table often located immediately after the call instruction to avoid extra conditional tests, further improving efficiency. In the System/360 assembly language, one would write, for example: BAL 14, SUBRTN01 go to a subroutine, storing return address in R14 B TABLE(15) use returned value in reg 15 to index the branch table, * branching to the appropriate branch instr. TABLE B OK return code =00 GOOD } B BAD return code =04 Invalid input } Branch table B ERROR return code =08 Unexpected condition }


Optimization of function calls

There is a significant runtime overhead in calling a function, including passing the arguments, branching to the subprogram, and branching back to the caller. The overhead often includes saving and restoring certain processor registers, allocating and reclaiming call frame storage, etc.. In some languages, each function call also implies automatic testing of the function's return code or the handling of exceptions that it may raise. A significant source of overhead in object-oriented languages is the intensively used dynamic dispatch for method calls. There are some seemingly obvious optimizations of procedure calls that cannot be applied if the procedures may have side effects. For example, in the expression (f(x)-1)/(f(x)+1), the function f must be called twice, because the two calls may return different results. Moreover, the value of x must be fetched again before the second call, since the first call may have changed it. Determining whether a subprogram may have a side effect is very difficult (indeed, undecidable by virtue of Rice's theorem). So, while those optimizations are safe in purely functional programming languages, compilers of typical imperative programming usually have to assume the worst.


Inlining

A method used to eliminate this overhead is '' inline expansion'' or ''inlining'' of the subprogram's body at each
call site In programming, a spot of a function or subroutine is the location (line of code) where the function is called (or may be called, through dynamic dispatch). A call site is where zero or more arguments are passed to the function, and zero or more re ...
(versus branching to the function and back). Not only does this avoid the call overhead, but it also allows the
compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs tha ...
to optimize the procedure's ''body'' more effectively by taking into account the context and arguments at that call. The inserted body can be optimized by the compiler. Inlining, however, will usually increase the code size, unless the program contains only one call to the function.


See also

*
Function (mathematics) In mathematics, a function from a set to a set assigns to each element of exactly one element of .; the words map, mapping, transformation, correspondence, and operator are often used synonymously. The set is called the domain of the functi ...
* Method (computer programming) *
Builtin function In computer software, in compiler theory, an intrinsic function (or built-in function) is a function ( subroutine) available for use in a given programming language whose implementation is handled specially by the compiler. Typically, it may subs ...
* Evaluation strategy * Modular programming * Transclusion * Operator overloading *
Protected procedure In computer science, the concept of protected procedure, first introduced as protected service routine in 1965, is necessary when two computations ''A'' and ''B'' use the same routine ''S''; a protected procedure is such if makes not possible for ...
*
Functional programming In computer science, functional programming is a programming paradigm where programs are constructed by applying and composing functions. It is a declarative programming paradigm in which function definitions are trees of expressions tha ...
* Command–query separation (CQS) * Coroutines, subprograms that call each other as if both were the main programs * Event handler, a subprogram that is called in response to an input event or interrupt * Asynchronous procedure call, a subprogram that is called after its parameters are set by other activities


References

{{Authority control Source code Articles with example C code Holism Programming constructs Subroutines