Python Functions

This chapter is from the book

Python Distilled

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This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book 

Python Distilled

Learn More Buy

5.10 Return Values

The return statement returns a value from a function. If no value is specified or you omit the return statement, None is returned. To return multiple values, place them in a tuple:

def parse_value(text):
    '''
    Split text of the form name=val into (name, val)
    '''
    parts = text.split('=', 1)
    return (parts[0].strip(), parts[1].strip())

Values returned in a tuple can be unpacked to individual variables:

name, value = parse_value('url=http://www.python.org')

Sometimes named tuples are used as an alternative:

from typing import NamedTuple

class ParseResult(NamedTuple):
    name: str
    value: str

def parse_value(text):
    '''
    Split text of the form name=val into (name, val)
    '''
    parts = text.split('=', 1)
    return ParseResult(parts[0].strip(), parts[1].strip())

A named tuple works the same way as a normal tuple (you can perform all the same operations and unpacking), but you can also reference the returned values using named attributes:

r = parse_value('url=http://www.python.org')
print(r.name, r.value)