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Swift Functions

Functions are self-contained chunks of code that perform a specific task. You give a function a name that identifies what it does, and this name is used to “call” the function to perform its task when needed. Every function in Swift has a type, consisting of the function’s parameter types and return type. You can use this type like any other type in Swift, which makes it easy to pass functions as parameters to other functions, and to return functions from functions. Functions can also be written within other functions to encapsulate useful functionality within a nested function scope.

func greet(person: String) -> String {
    let greeting = "Hello, " + person + "!"
    return greeting
}

The function in the example below is called greet(person:), because that’s what it does—it takes a person’s name as input and returns a greeting for that person. To accomplish this, you define one input parameter—a String value called person—and a return type of String, which will contain a greeting for that person:

Functions Without Parameters

Functions aren’t required to define input parameters. Here’s a function with no input parameters, which always returns the same String message whenever it’s called:

func sayHelloWorld() -> String {
return "hello, world"
}
print(sayHelloWorld())
// Prints "hello, world"

Functions Without Return Values

func greet(person: String) {
    print("Hello, \(person)!")
}
greet(person: "Abdi")
// Prints "Hello, Abdi!"

Functions with Multiple Return Values

func minMax(array: [Int]) -> (min: Int, max: Int) {
    var currentMin = array[0]
    var currentMax = array[0]
    for value in array[1..<array.count] {
        if value < currentMin {
            currentMin = value
        } else if value > currentMax {
            currentMax = value
        }
    }
    return (currentMin, currentMax)
}
let bounds = minMax(array: [8, -6, 2, 109, 3, 71])
print("min is \(bounds.min) and max is \(bounds.max)")
// Prints "min is -6 and max is 109"

Nested Functions

All of the functions you have encountered so far in this chapter have been examples of global functions, which are defined at a global scope. You can also define functions inside the bodies of other functions, known as nested functions.

Nested functions are hidden from the outside world by default, but can still be called and used by their enclosing function. An enclosing function can also return one of its nested functions to allow the nested function to be used in another scope.

You can rewrite the chooseStepFunction(backward:) example above to use and return nested functions:

func chooseStepFunction(backward: Bool) -> (Int) -> Int {
    func stepForward(input: Int) -> Int { return input + 1 }
    func stepBackward(input: Int) -> Int { return input - 1 }
    return backward ? stepBackward : stepForward
}
var currentValue = -4
let moveNearerToZero = chooseStepFunction(backward: currentValue > 0)
// moveNearerToZero now refers to the nested stepForward() function
while currentValue != 0 {
    print("\(currentValue)... ")
    currentValue = moveNearerToZero(currentValue)
}
print("zero!")
// -4...
// -3...
// -2...
// -1...
// zero!