Functions with a return value in Blocks

PXT
1

What’s the story with functions and return values? It looks like these cannot be done in pure Blocks? I know Scratch took this approach for some reason but I’d quite like a return value at the moment. I can hack it with a global value but it’s ugly and I might stomp on the value accidentally if I use the function from different places.

I flicked into JavaScript mode to add the return statement as an experiment. I thought that would turn into a single grey block but it’s actually annihilated my function definition and put the whole thing into a grey block that I now cannot call from Blocks.

2

This has the elegance of adding TCP/IP to Windows 3.11 but it’s viable for returning numbers in Arcade for the desperate Blocks programmer:

arcade-Hacky-Function-Returns-screenshot-code
arcade-Hacky-Function-Returns-screenshot-code921×714 63 KB

arcade-Hacky-Function-Returns-screenshot-simscreen

3

Have you seen that functions now have return blocks? Very cool!

1 Like
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mchammer Great news! mchammer-left

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Got a link for that? Would love to know how to do it.

7

No link, but you need to be in beta and then make a function. Once you have a function block you can pick a return block from the function category.

8

Ah, beta, you say? I’m using the Adafruit version, which doesn’t appear to have return blocks (alas).

Thanks!

9

That’s what I was using too — just add “/beta” to the end of the URL and you’ll be in the beta version