# Functions: Defining A Function

A function definition defines a named function, and has the following general form:

function name ( parameter-list ) : return-type { statements }

Consider the following definition of a function that computes the distance between two Cartesian-coordinate points using Pythagoras' Theorem:

function distance((float, float) $p1, (float, float)$p2): float {
$dx =$p1[0] - $p2[0];$dy = $p1[1] -$p2[1];
return \sqrt($dx*$dx + $dy*$dy);
}


The function's name is distance, parameters $p1 and $p2 have type tuple of two floats, and the return type is float. The body of the function—that is, the set of statements executed when this function is called—is enclosed in the brace pair. A function's body may be empty. Each parameter is a variable local to the parent function.

A call to this function must provide two arguments, of type tuple of two floats. However, it is possible to provide fewer arguments, provided the corresponding parameters contain default values, as follows:

function distance(
(float, float) $p1 = tuple(0.0, 0.0), (float, float)$p2 = tuple(0.0, 0.0)
): float {
...
}


Now, the function can be called with two arguments, the first argument only, or with no arguments, with a default value being used when the corresponding argument is omitted.

The function returns a value using the return statement. A function having a return type of noreturn never returns. Instead, it, or a function it calls directly or indirectly, terminates in some other manner, such as by throwing an exception or by calling the non-returning library function exit.

Hack supports variadic functions; that is, functions that can be called with a variable number of arguments. This is declared by having an ellipsis (...) as the last part of a parameter list. The parameter list components preceding that represents the fixed part while the ellipsis represents the variable part. For example:

function maximum(int $val1, int ...$vals): int {
$retVal =$val1;
foreach ($vals as$e) {
if ($e >$retVal) $retVal =$e;
}
return $retVal; } <<__EntryPoint>> function main(): void { echo "max = ".maximum(100)."\n"; echo "max = ".maximum(100, 75)."\n"; echo "max = ".maximum(100, 93, 124)."\n"; }  Output max = 100 max = 100 max = 124  By default, arguments are passed by value; however, if a parameter contains the inout modifier, the corresponding argument must also contain that modifier. For example: function swap(inout int$i1, inout int $i2): void {$temp = $i1;$i1 = $i2;$i2 = $temp; } <<__EntryPoint>> function main(): void {$v1 = -10;
$v2 = 123; echo "\$v1 = ".$v1.", \$v2 = ".$v2."\n"; swap(inout$v1, inout $v2); echo "\$v1 = ".$v1.", \$v2 = ".$v2."\n"; }  Output $v1 = -10, $v2 = 123$v1 = 123, \$v2 = -10


As we can see from the output, changes to the parameters in swap are reflected in their corresponding arguments back in the calling function.