Python for Basic Data Analysis: 2.3 Functions with Return Values

Using return, you can write a function that returns a value. You can assign the returned values to a variable which can be used in whatever manner you choose.

This is useful when you need to use the results your function produces for something else.

First let's create a simple multiplication function. We will see an output of 40.

Now let us add 2 to the variable mul

print(mul+2)

With the updated function below, we will see an output of 42.

You can also create a function that takes in multiple arguments, and add them both together.

Results:
4
11
15

Since we do not declare variables in Python, this means that we can use the addition function we created above to add any 2 sets of data together as long as they are both the same type (string, float, integer).

Let's add these codes into our trinket and see what happens!

print(addition("one","time"))

print(addition([1,1],[1,1]))

The results shows that the function concatenated "one" and "time", and merged the 2 lists to become [1, 1, 1, 1].