Method structure

The first part of a method that we write is called the signature. Here is a hypothetical method signature:

public boolean addContact(boolean isFriend, string name)

If we add an opening and closing pair of curly braces {} with some code that the method performs, then we have a complete method – a definition. Here is another made-up, yet syntactically correct, method:

private void setCoordinates(int x, int y){
   // code to set coordinates goes here
}

As we have seen, we could then use our new method from another part of our code, like this:

// I like it here

setCoordinates(4,6);// now I am going off to setCoordinates method

// Phew, I'm back again - code continues here

At the point where we call setCoordinates, our program's execution would branch to the code contained within that method. The method would execute all the statements inside it, step by step, until it reaches the end and returns control to the code that called it – or sooner if it hits a return statement. Then...