Return

The return statement is used to explicitly return from a method. That is, it causes program control to transfer back to the caller of the method.

As such, it is categorized as a jump statement. At any time in a method the return statement can be used to cause execution to branch back to the caller of the method. 

The return statement immediately terminates the method in which it is executed. The following example illustrates this point.

Here, return causes execution to return to the Java run-time system, since it is the run-time system that calls main( ).

// Demonstrate return statement.

class WLReturn

{

public static void main(String args[])

{

int i=10,j=2;

System.out.println("Before Return Statement");

return;  // return to caller

System.out.println("After Return Statement");

}

}

Type following command in command prompt

javac WLReturn.java

WLReturn.java:8: error: unreachable statement

                System.out.println("After Return Statement");

                ^

1 error

// Demonstrate return statement.

class WLReturn

{

public static void main(String args[])

{

int i=10,j=2;

System.out.println("Before Return Statement");

if(i%j == 0)

return; // return to caller

System.out.println("After Return Statement");

}

}

Type following command in command prompt

javac WLReturn.java

java WLReturn

Before Return Statement

As you can see the final println() statement is not executed. As soon as return is executed control passes back to the caller.

In the preceding program, the if(i%j == 0) statement is necessary. Without it, the Java compiler would flag an “unreachable code” error because the compiler would know that the last println( ) statement would never be executed. 

To prevent this error, the if statement is used here to trick the compiler for the sake of this demonstration.

// Demonstrate return statement. class WLReturn { public static void main(String args[]) { int i=10,j=2; System.out.println("Before Return Statement"); return; // return to caller System.out.println("After Return Statement"); } }