4.3. Function Definitions¶

So far, we have only been using the functions that come with Python, but we often need to to add new functions we write ourselves. A function definition specifies the name of a new function and the sequence of statements that execute when the function is called. Once we define a function, we can reuse the function over and over throughout our program. The syntax for calling a new function we define is the same as for any other function (see the function call pattern).

Here is an example of defining a function, followed by calling it twice:

def is a keyword that indicates the start of a function definition. The name of the function here is print_lyrics. The rules for function names are the same as for variable names: letters, numbers and some punctuation marks are legal, but the first character can’t be a number. You can’t use a keyword as the name of a function, and you should avoid having a variable and a function with the same name to avoid confusion.

The empty parentheses after the name indicate that this function doesn’t take any arguments. Later we will build functions that take arguments.

The first line of the function definition has to end with a colon and the body has to be indented. The body can contain any number of statements. Notice that this is the same pattern (a colon followed by an indented body) as we’ve seen in for loops, while loops, and if statements. It’s consistent across the language.

Syntax Pattern

A function definition has the form:

def <function name>(<parameters>):
    <body>

When Python interprets this syntax, it creates a new function with the given name that contains the statements (lines of code) in the body.

Parameters are optional. [We will fill in details about parameters farther down.]

Check your understanding

    Q-1: What is the purpose of the “def” keyword in Python?

  • It indicates the start of a function
  • It executes a function
  • It indicates that the following indented section of code is to be stored for later
  • a and b are both true
  • a and c are both true
  • Correct! "def" indicates the start of a function definition, meaning that the following indented block of code will be stored under the given name.

Defining a function creates a variable with the same name.

The value of print_lyrics is a function object, which has type “function”.

Check your understanding

    Q-2: The program above never prints out the lyrics, “I’m a lumberjack
” Why not?

  • Because it is invalid syntax.
  • Because print_lyrics() is not called.
  • Correct! When we wrote "print(print_lyrics)", that is printing out what the function is (in a sense). We didn't write "print_lyrics()" with the parentheses that would make it a function *call* that *would* execute the function and print the lyrics.
  • Because Python doesn't like the lyrics.
  • Because Python got confused by seeing "print" everywhere.

Once you have defined a function, you can use it anywhere, even inside another function. For example, to repeat the previous refrain, we could write a function called repeat_lyrics() and call it:

(But that’s not really how the song goes
)

This program contains two function definitions: print_lyrics and repeat_lyrics. It’s important to recognize that the function definitions get executed just like other statements, but doing so does not execute the functions. To see this, open CodeLens for the above code, and step forward twice. You’ll see that each time Python executes one of the def ... lines, nothing is printed, but a new function is defined on the right. The statements inside the function are stored when the function definition is executed, and they do not get executed until the function is called.

Step forward in the code one more time. Now you’ll see what happens when a function is called. The function call on line 10 jumps into the repeat_lyrics() function, and then the function is executed.

As you might expect, you have to create a function before you can execute it. In other words, the function definition has to be executed before the first time the function is called.

Check your understanding

  1. What do you think will happen if you move the last line of the program above (that calls repeat_lyrics()) to the top of the program?

    Make the change, and run the program again to check.

  2. What do you think will happen if you move the definition of print_lyrics after the definition of repeat_lyrics?

    Make the change (after undoing the change you made for (1) above), and run the program again to check. Stepping through the code with CodeLens can help understand how it works.

4.3.1. Flow of Execution¶

In order to ensure that a function is defined before its first use, you have to know the order in which statements are executed, which is called the flow of execution.

Execution always begins at the first statement of the program. Statements are executed one at a time, in order from top to bottom.

When a function definition is reached, it defines a function, storing its statements, but remember that statements inside the function are not executed until the function is called.

A function call is like a detour in the flow of execution. Instead of going to the next statement, a function call does the following:

  1. The flow jumps to the body of the function,

  2. The flow proceeds through all the statements there, executing them in order,

  3. When the end of the function is reached, the flow jumps back to the line after the original function call to pick up where it left off.

That sounds simple enough, until you remember that one function can call another. While in the middle of one function, the program might have to execute the statements in another function. But while executing that new function, the program might have to execute yet another function!

Fortunately, Python is good at keeping track of where it is, so each time a function completes, the program picks up where it left off in the function that called it. When it gets to the end of the program, it terminates.

What’s the moral of this story? When you read a program, you don’t always want to just read from top to bottom. You need to follow the flow of execution.

CodeLens in this book and the Python Tutor website on which it is based are both very helpful for studying the flow of execution of programs. You can watch where it goes, step-by-step, and both build up and check your understanding as you watch.

Note

If you are working in a Jupyter notebook environment, flow of execution also depends on the order in which you choose to execute cells. When executing a single cell, the flow of execution works within the cell as described above, but you can choose to execute cells in whatever order you want.

If you ever find yourself unsure of which code has executed when or otherwise confused about the state of the values and definitions of variables and functions, it is safest to restart the kernel and re-run the cells in order. Restarting the kernel starts everything again with a “blank slate,” in which nothing has been defined yet, and then you can make sure each cell executes in an order you want and can remember.

Check your understanding

    Q-3: What will the following Python program print out?

    def fred():
   print("Zap")

def jane():
   print("ABC")

jane()
fred()
jane()
  • Zap ABC jane fred jane
  • Incorrect. Make sure you're applying the rules for function definitions, function calls, and flow of execution as you think through the code.
  • Zap ABC Zap
  • Incorrect. Make sure you're applying the rules for function definitions, function calls, and flow of execution as you think through the code.
  • ABC Zap jane
  • Incorrect. Make sure you're applying the rules for function definitions, function calls, and flow of execution as you think through the code.
  • ABC Zap ABC
  • Correct!
  • Zap Zap Zap
  • Incorrect. Make sure you're applying the rules for function definitions, function calls, and flow of execution as you think through the code.

4.3.2. Parameters and Arguments¶

Some of the built-in functions we have been using so far require arguments. For example, when you call range(), you have to pass it a number as an argument. When calling len(), you have to give it a string, list, or other sequence as an argument. Some functions take more than one argument: math.pow() in the math module takes two, the base and the exponent.

When a function is called, any arguments given in the function call are assigned to variables in the function body called parameters. Here is an example of a user-defined function that takes an argument:

def print_twice(thing):
    print(thing)
    print(thing)

This function assigns the argument to a parameter named thing. When the function is called, it prints the value of the parameter (whatever it is) twice.

Run the above code in CodeLens. Watch what happens when you call the print_twice() function with an argument. Each time, the value of the argument is copied into the thing parameter (a variable) inside the print_twice() function. After a call to the function ends, that variable no longer exists. We can fill in some details about parameters in the function definition syntax pattern now:

Syntax Pattern

A function definition has the form:

def <function name>(<parameters>):
    <body>

When Python interprets this syntax, it creates a new function with the given name that contains the statements (lines of code) in the body.

Parameters are optional. If one or more parameters are specified, as variable names separated by commas, then they behave as follows:

  1. Each time the function is called, it must be called with one argument for each of the parameters in the function definition.

  2. Each parameter is a variable that exists only inside the function body.

  3. The value of each argument will be assigned to a parameter, matching each argument to a parameter by the order in which they are written.

  4. When the function ends, the parameter variables are deleted. (They no longer exist and cannot be used outside of the function.)

The same rules of composition that apply to built-in functions also apply to user-defined functions, so we can use any kind of expression as an argument for print_twice. Again, for the code below, use CodeLens to watch what happens each time the function is called and what value is assigned to its parameter:

Every function argument is evaluated before the function is called, and its value is passed in to be assigned to the parameter.

A common source of confusion for beginner programmers is the use of variables as function arguments. The line above that calls print_twice(sentence) is an example of this. You might think that this will just make the sentence variable available inside the function, so you could use it like this:

The error this code produces shows that the sentence variable does not exist within the function, even if we use that variable as an argument when calling the function. The key detail of function definitions that explains this is the rule that says “The value of each argument will be assigned to a parameter
”

In other words, the name of the variable we pass as an argument (sentence) has nothing to do with the name of the parameter (thing). It doesn’t matter what the value was called back home (in the caller); here in print_twice, we call it thing.

4.3.3. Fruitful Functions and Void Functions¶

Some of the functions we are using, such as len() or int(), yield results; for lack of a better name, they are sometimes called fruitful functions. Other functions, like print_twice(), perform an action but don’t return a value. They are called void functions.

To return a result from a function, making it a fruitful function, we use the return statement in our function. For example, we could make a very simple function called add_two() that adds two numbers together and returns a result.

When this script executes, the print() statement will print out 8 because the add_two() function was called with 3 and 5 as arguments. Within the function, the parameters a and b were 3 and 5 respectively. The function computed the sum of the two numbers and placed it in the local function variable named added. Then it used the return statement to send the computed value back to the calling code as the function result, which was assigned to the variable x and printed out.

It is worth using CodeLens again to watch that happen and see how each line works.

When you call a fruitful function, you almost always want to do something with the result it produces; for example, you might assign the result to a variable as in the example above or use it as part of an expression:

golden = (math.sqrt(5) + 1) / 2

If you call a fruitful function and do not store the result of the function in a variable, the return value vanishes!

The function call does compute the sum of 3 and 5, but since it doesn’t store the result in a variable or do anything else, it is not very useful. (We saw another example of code executing but not accomplishing anything – because its result wasn’t saved or used anywhere – in code back in Chapter 2.)

Caution

A very common mistake beginner programmers make is to assume that a return statement with a variable makes that variable exist outside of the function. They often write code like this:

Refer back to the function call pattern for the exact details of what happens when a function is called. The function call itself is evaluated to become the returned value – and remember that a value is not the same thing as a variable.

In the return statement, the value of the added variable is returned, not the variable itself. So the function call here becomes the value 8, as if we had just written 8 on that line by itself.

This reinforces what we said above: when you call a fruitful function, you almost always want to assign its return value to a variable or otherwise use the function call in an expression. Calling a fruitful function on a line by itself effectively throws away its return value.

4.3.4. Why Define Functions?¶

It may not be clear why it is worth the trouble to divide a program into functions. There are several reasons:

  • Testing and Debugging: Dividing a long program into functions can help you to test and debug the parts individually, one at a time and then assemble them into a working whole.

  • Code Reuse (within a program): Functions can make a program smaller by eliminating repetitive code. (A common refrain in programming is “DRY: Don’t Repeat Yourself.”)

  • Code Maintenance: If you have to update, fix, or change code that is defined in a function, you only have to make changes in one place, and those changes will take effect everywhere the function is called.

  • Code Reuse (across programs): Well-designed functions are often useful for many programs. Once you write and debug a function, you can reuse it in other programs.

  • Overall: Creating a new function gives you an opportunity to name a potentially very complex group of statements and then refer to them by that simple name anywhere they need to be used. This makes your program easier to read, understand, and debug.

The final point embodies a critical concept in programming and computer science called abstraction. Abstraction, in this context, is the practice of hiding or ignoring details in order to manage complexity.

For an example outside of computer science, consider cars. Cars are complex machines, with an incredible number of interacting parts and systems involved in their operation. Even a trained automotive engineer can’t consider all of those pieces and their interactions simultaneously, and most of us have very little of the knowledge we’d need to even try.

And yet we use a car, driving it successfully from place to place without knowing or understanding any of that detail. We have a simplified “interface” to control the car: a steering wheel, a gear shift, and some pedals. All we need to understand is how those parts direct the functioning of the car at a high level. That interface is an abstraction of the total complexity of the car and its functioning, and all of that complexity has been hidden behind the abstraction. The abstraction allows us to ignore the complexity while still using it successfully.

Programs can be incredibly complex as well, containing far more detail than we can hope to capture in our heads at once. Even the steps required to successfully print a simple greeting like "Hello, World!" on the screen are more than we’d want to deal with. And so the print() function exists as an abstraction of that complexity. The complexity is hidden, we can ignore it, and we are able to easily use it via the simple “interface” of the print() function call.

So in general, you can create function definitions to accomplish the same thing. You can take some code you have written, put it in a function, and later just refer to that function by its name without worrying about exactly how it works internally. This basic idea brings us all of the benefits listed above: clearer organization, easy code reuse, improved testing and debugging, and simpler maintenance.