Functions

Basic concept And Defination

 A function is a group of statements that together perform a
task. Every C program has at least one function, which is
main(), and all the most trivial programs can define
additional functions. ... A function declaration tells the
compiler about a function's name, return type, and
parameters.

 A function is a block of statements that performs a specific

task. Suppose you are building an application in C language
and in one of your program, you need to perform a same task
more than once. In such case you have two options –
 a) Use the same set of statements every time you want to
perform the task
b) Create a function to perform that task, and just call it every
time you need to perform that task.
 Using option (b) is a good practice and a good programmer
always uses functions while writing codes in C.
Types of functions
 1) Predefined standard library functions – such
as puts(), gets(), printf(), scanf() etc – These are the
functions which already have a definition in header
files (.h files like stdio.h), so we just call them
whenever there is a need to use them..

 2) User Defined functions – The functions that we

create in a program are known as user defined
functions.
Why we need functions in C
 Functions are used because of following reasons –
a) To improve the readability of code.
b) Improves the reusability of the code, same function
can be used in any program rather than writing the
same code from scratch.
c) Debugging of the code would be easier if you use
functions, as errors are easy to be traced.
d) Reduces the size of the code, duplicate set of
statements are replaced by function calls.
 Defining a Function
 The general form of a function definition in C programming
language is as follows −
return_type function_name( parameter list )
{ body of the function }
 A function definition in C programming consists of a function
header and a function body. Here are all the parts of a function −
 Return Type − A function may return a value. The return_type is
the data type of the value the function returns. Some functions
perform the desired operations without returning a value. In this
case, the return_type is the keyword void.
 Function Name − This is the actual name of the function. The
function name and the parameter list together constitute the
function signature.
 Parameters − A parameter is like a placeholder. When a function is
invoked, you pass a value to the parameter. This value is referred to
as actual parameter or argument. The parameter list refers to the
type, order, and number of the parameters of a function. Parameters
are optional; that is, a function may contain no parameters.
 Function Body − The function body contains a collection of
statements that define what the function does.
Function Declarations
 A function declaration tells the compiler about a function
name and how to call the function. The actual body of the
function can be defined separately.
 A function declaration has the following parts −
return_type function_name( parameter list );
 For the above defined function addition (), the function
declaration is as follows −
int addition(int num1, int num2);
 Parameter names are not important in function declaration
only their type is required, so the following is also a valid
declaration −
int addition(int , int);
 Function declaration is required when you define a
function in one source file and you call that function in
another file. In such case, you should declare the function
at the top of the file calling the function.
Calling a Function
 While creating a C function, you give a definition of
what the function has to do. To use a function, you will
have to call that function to perform the defined task.
 When a program calls a function, the program control
is transferred to the called function. A called function
performs a defined task and when its return statement
is executed or when its function-ending closing brace
is reached, it returns the program control back to the
main program.
 To call a function, you simply need to pass the required
parameters along with the function name, and if the
function returns a value, then you can store the
returned value. For example −
Creating a user defined function addition()
 #include <stdio.h>
 int addition(int num1, int num2)
 {
 int sum; /* Arguments are used here*/
 sum = num1+num2; /* Function return type is integer so we are returning * an
integer value, the sum of the passed numbers. */

 return sum;
 }
 int main()
 {
 int var1, var2;
 printf("Enter number 1: ");
 scanf("%d",&var1);
 printf("Enter number 2: ");
 scanf("%d",&var2); /* Calling the function here, the
function return type * is integer so we need an integer
variable to hold the * returned value of this function. */
 int res = addition(var1, var2);
 printf ("Output: %d", res);
 return 0;
 }