return

The return keyword in Python is used inside a function to terminate its execution and send a value back to the caller.

Syntax

def function_name():
  return value

The return statement is used inside a function defined using the def keyword. It must be written in lowercase (return). Using incorrect casing like Return or RETURN will result in a SyntaxError.

Example 1

In this example, the sum() function returns the sum of the two input values:

def sum(a, b):
  result = a + b
  return result
print (sum(3, 4))

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The output of this code is:

7

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Example 2

In this example, the get_user() function demonstrates returning multiple values by separating them with commas:

def get_user():
  firstname = "Jane"
  lastname = "Doe"
  age = 30
  return firstname, lastname, age

user_firstname, user_lastname, user_age = get_user()
print(user_firstname)
print(user_lastname)
print(user_age)

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The output of this code will be:

Jane
Doe
30

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Codebyte Example

The return keyword can be used to exit a function early. When used without a value, it implicitly returns None (which means no value is returned). The following code is demonstrating the same:

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