A First Function Definition

If you know it is the birthday of a friend, Emily, you might tell those gathered with you to sing “Happy Birthday to Emily”.

We can make C# display the song. Read, and run if you like, the example program birthday1/birthday1.cs:

using System;

class Birthday1
{
   static void Main ()
   {
      Console.WriteLine ("Happy Birthday to you!");
      Console.WriteLine ("Happy Birthday to you!");
      Console.WriteLine ("Happy Birthday, dear Emily.");
      Console.WriteLine ("Happy Birthday to you!");
   }
}

Here the song is just a part of the Main method that is in every program.

Note that we are using a function already provided to us, Console.WriteLine. We can use it over and over, wherever we like. We can alter its behavior by including a different parameter. Now we look further at writing and using your own functions.

If we want this song to be just part of a larger program, and be able to refer to it repeatedly and easily, we might like to package it separately. You would probably not repeat the whole song to let others know what to sing. You would give a request to sing via a descriptive name like “Happy Birthday to Emily”.

In C# we can also give a name like HappyBirthdayEmily, and associate the name with whole song by using a new function definition, also called a method. We will see many variations on method definitions. Later we will see definitions that are attached to a particular object. For now the simpler cases do not involve creating a type of object, but there is an extra word, static, needed to distinguish a function definition not attached to on object. We will also shortly look at functions more like the functions from math class, that produce or return a value. In this simple case we will not deal with returning a value. This also requires a special word in the heading: void. A void function will just be a shorthand name for something to do, a procedure to follow, in this case printing out the Happy Birthday song for Emily. (Note that the Main method for a program is also static void. This does your whole program and is not attached to an object.)

Read for now:

using System;

class Birthday2
{
   static void HappyBirthdayEmily()
   {
      Console.WriteLine ("Happy Birthday to you!");
      Console.WriteLine ("Happy Birthday to you!");
      Console.WriteLine ("Happy Birthday, dear Emily.");
      Console.WriteLine ("Happy Birthday to you!");
   }

   static void Main()
   {
      HappyBirthdayEmily();
      Console.WriteLine ("Hip hip hooray!");
      HappyBirthdayEmily();
   }
}

There are several parts of the syntax for a function definition to notice:

Line 5: The heading starts with static void, the name of the function, and then parentheses.

A more general syntax for functions that just do something is

static void FunctionName()

{

statements in the function body…

}

Recall the conventions in Syntax Template Typography.

Lines 6-11: The remaining lines form the function body. They are enclosed in braces. By convention the lines inside the braces are indented by a consistent amount. Three spaces is a common indentation.

The whole definition does just that: defines the meaning of the name HappyBirthdayEmily, but it does not do anything else yet - for example, the definition itself does not yet make anything be printed. This is our first example of altering the order of execution of statements from the normal sequential order. This is important: the statements in the function definition are not executed as C# first passes over the lines. The only part of a program that is automatically executed is Main. Hence Main better refer to the newly defined function….

Look at the first statement inside Main, line 15:

HappyBirthdayEmily();

Note that the static void of the function definition is missing, but we still have the function name and parentheses. When Main is running, C# goes back and looks up the definition, and only then, executes the code inside the function definition. The term for this action is a function call or function invocation. In this simple situation the format is

FunctionName()

While the convention for variable identifiers is to start with a lowercase letter, the convention for function names is to start with a capital letter. Hence HappyBirthdayEmily, not happyBirthdayEmily.

Can you predict what the program will do? Note the two function calls to HappyBirthdayEmily. To see, load and run birthday2/birthday2.cs.

The execution sequence for the program is different from the textual sequence. Execution always starts in Main:

1. Line 13: Main is where execution starts, and initially proceeds sequentially.

2. Line 15: the function is called while this location is remembered.

3. Lines 5-11: Jump! The code of the function is executed for the first time, printing out the song.

4. End of line 15: Back from the function call; continue on.

5. Line 16: Just to mix things up, print out a “Hip, hip, hooray”.

6. Line 17: the function is called again while this location is remembered.

7. Lines 5-11: The function is executed again, printing out the song again.

8. End of line 17: Back from the function call, but at this point there is nothing more in Main, and execution stops.

Functions alter execution order in several ways: by statements not being executed as the definition is first read, and then when the function is called during execution, jumping to the function code, and back at the the end of the function execution.

Understanding the jumping around in the code with function calls is crucial. Be sure you follow the sequence detailed above. In particular, be sure to distinguish function definition from function call.

If it also happens to be Andre’s birthday, we might define a function HappyBirthdayAndre, too. Think how to do that before going on ….