Teacher Note: Statements after return are not executed¶
Another common misconception students have about functions is that the entire body of the function is executed from top to bottom, regardless of where the return statement appears in the function body.
The following program illustrates this misconception. Before running the below example, answer this question: how many times is “4” printed?
A student that had this misconception would predict that “4” would be printed twice. In fact, in this program, “4” would only be printed once. Run the code to see for yourself.
Correct understanding We understand that the return statement identifies the value to be returned by the function. What students sometimes miss is that, additionally, the return statement specifies the point where the function “exits”, or where it ends execution. In the above program then, the function stops executing at line 3, skipping that print function call at line 4. That is, the function “exits” at line 3.
How would you change the above example to print “4” twice?
How to tell if a student has this misconception return statements are commonly at the end of functions, although they do appear in the middle of functions in some cases, discussed later in the book. At this point, however, watch out for code that includes a return statement in the middle of a function. Students who do this may have this misconception.
Similarly, some students might be puzzled that certain lines in their function do not seem to execute when they expect them to. There might be a misplaced return statement before these lines.
Remember: the function exits at the return statement. Any statements that come after a return are not executed.