Chapter 7. Functions

CONTENTS

Section 7.1 Defining a Function	226
Section 7.2 Argument Passing	229
Section 7.3 The return Statement	245
Section 7.4 Function Declarations	251
Section 7.5 Local Objects	254
Section 7.6 Inline Functions	256
Section 7.7 Class Member Functions	258
Section 7.8 Overloaded Functions	265
Section 7.9 Pointers to Functions	276
Chapter Summary	280
Defined Terms	280

This chapter describes how to define and declare functions. We'll cover how arguments are passed to and values are returned from a function. We'll then look at three special kinds of functions: inline functions, class member functions, and overloaded functions. The chapter closes with a more advanced topic: function pointers.

A function can be thought of as a programmer-defined operation. Like the built-in operators, each function performs some computation and (usually) yields a result. Unlike the operators, functions have names and may take an unlimited number of operands. Like operators, functions can be overloaded, meaning that the same name may refer to multiple different functions.