Note that return
and print
are not interchangeable. print
is a Python function that prints data to the screen. It enables us, users, see the data. return
statement, on the other hand, makes data visible to the program. Let’s have a look at the following function:
def add(a, b):
print(a + b)
Question: What will we see if we execute the following commands?
A = add(7, 3)
print(A)
add
with a = 7
and b = 3
, and, therefore, print 10
. However, because function add
does not have a line that starts with return
(no return
“statement”), it will, by default, return nothing which, in Python world, is called None
. Therefore, A
will be assigned to None
and the last line (print(A))
will print None
. As a result, we will see:
10 None