Methods

A method definition is indicated by the keyword followed by the method name. Every expression until the keyword end is part of the method body.

What if we want to greet different people, but all in the same manner? Instead of writing individual messages, we can define a method that allows customization through a parameter. A parameter is like a local variable inside the method body. Parameters are declared after the method name in parentheses. When calling a method, you can pass in arguments that are mapped as values for the method’s parameters.

def say_hello(recipient)
  puts "Hello #{recipient}!"
end
say_hello "Crystal"

Arguments can be assigned a default value. It is used in case the argument is missing in the method call. Usually, arguments are mandatory but when there’s a default value, it can be omitted.

def say_hello(recipient = "World")
end
say_hello
say_hello "Crystal"

Our example method expects recipient to be a String. But any other type would work as well. Try say_hello 6 for example.

This isn’t necessarily a problem for this method. Using any other type would be valid code. But semantically we want to greet people with a name as a String.

Now names cannot be numbers or other data types anymore. This doesn’t mean you can’t greet people with a number as a name. The number just needs to be expressed as a string. Try say_hello "6" for example.

Restricting the type of an argument can be used for positional overloading. When a method has an unrestricted argument like say_hello(recipient), all calls to a method say_hello go to that method. But with overloading several methods of the same name can exist with different argument type restrictions. Each call is routed to the most fitting overload.

  puts "Hello #{recipient}!"
end
# This method greets *times* times.
def say_hello(times : Int32)
  puts "Hello " * times
end
say_hello 3

Overloading isn’t defined just by type restrictions. The number of arguments as well as named arguments are also relevant characteristics.