Handing an Answer Back 🎯

So far your functions print things. But printing just puts words on the screen — your program can't use them for anything.

return hands a value back to whoever called the function, so you can store it, print it, or do more math with it:

def double(number):
    return number * 2

result = double(7)
print(result)          # ➜ 14
print(double(50))      # ➜ 100
print(double(3) + 1)   # ➜ 7

See the difference?

• print = show it on screen and forget it
• return = hand it back so your program can keep using it

One more thing: return ends the function immediately. Anything written after it never runs.

Your mission

1. Build double(number) that returns the number times 2 (no print inside!)
2. Build area(width, height) that returns width times height
3. Print double(12)
4. Store area(5, 3) in a variable, then print a sentence about it