Objects, Classes, and Interfaces

Implementing Methods

Similar to a class implementation, a method implementation consists of two parts: the method declaration and the method body.

methodDeclaration {
    methodBody
}

The Method Declaration

At minimum, a method declaration has a name and a return type indicating the data type of the value returned by the method:

returnType methodName() {
    . . .
}

This method declaration is very basic. Methods have many other attributes such as arguments, access control, and so on. This section will cover these topics as well as expand upon the features illustrated in the method declaration above.

Passing Information into a Method

Perhaps, the most commonly used optional component of a method declaration are method parameters. Similar to functions in other programming languages, Java methods accept input from the caller through its parameters. Parameters provide information to the method from outside the scope of the method.

The Method Body

The method body is where all of the action of a method takes place; the method body contains all of the legal Java instructions that implement the method.

Objects, Classes, and Interfaces