Introduction to Functions in C#

In C#, a function is a way of packaging code that does something and then returns the value.  Unlike in C, C and some other languages, functions do not exist by themselves. They are part of an object-oriented approach to programming. A program to manage spreadsheets might include a sum() function as part of an object, for example. In C#, a function can be called a member function—it is a member of a class—but that terminology is left over from C. The usual name for it is a method. The Instance Method There are two types of methods: instance method and static method. This introduction covers the instance method. The example below defines a simple class and calls it Test. This example is a simple console program, so this is allowed. Usually, the first class defined in the C# file must be the form class. Its possible to have an empty class like this class Test { }, but it isnt useful. Although it looks empty, it—like all C# classes—inherits from the Object that contains it and includes a default constructor  in the main program. var t new Test(); This code works, but it wont do anything when run except create an instance t of the empty test class. The code below adds a function, a method that outputs the word Hello. using System;namespace funcex1{class Test{public void SayHello(){Console.WriteLine(Hello) ;}}class Program{static void Main(string[] args){var t new Test() ;t.SayHello() ;Console.ReadKey() ;}}} This code example includes Console.ReadKey(), so when it runs, it displays the console window and awaits a key entry such as Enter, Space or Return (not the shift, Alt or Ctrl keys). Without it, it would open the console Window, output Hello and then close all in the blink of an eye. The function SayHello is about as simple a function as you can have. Its a public function, which means the function is visible from outside  the class. If you remove the word public and try to compile the code, it fails with a compilation error funcex1.test.SayHello() is inaccessible due to its protection level. If you add the word private where the word public was and recompile, you get the same compile error. Just change it back to public. The word void in the function means that the function does not return any values. Typical Function Definition Characteristics Access level: public, private plus some othersReturn value: void or any type such as intMethod Name: SayHelloAny method parameters: none for now. These are defined in the brackets () after the method name The code for the definition of another function, MyAge(), is: public int MyAge(){return 53;} Add that right after the SayHello() method in the first example and add these two lines before Console.ReadKey(). var age t.MyAge();Console.WriteLine(David is {0} years old,age); Running the program now outputs this: Hello David is 53 years old, The var age t.MyAge(); call to the method returned the value 53. Its not the most useful function. A more useful example is the spreadsheet Sum function with an array of ints, the start index and the number of values to sum. This is the function: public float Sum(int[] values, int startindex, int endindex){var total 0;for (var indexstartindex; indexendindex; index){total values[index];}return total;} Here are three use cases. This is the code to add in Main() and call to test the Sum function. var values new int[10] {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,10};Console.WriteLine(t.Sum(values,0,2)); // Should be 6Console.WriteLine(t.Sum(values,0,9)); // should be 55Console.WriteLine(t.Sum(values,9,9)); // should be 10 as 9th value is 10 The For loop adds up the values in the range startindex to endindex, so for startindex 0 and endindex2, this is the sum of 1 2 3 6. Whereas for 9,9, it just adds the one values[9] 10. Within the function, the local variable total is initialized to 0 and then has the relevant parts of the array values added.