Return type

The Return type constrains the resulting value from calling a method or function. It must be explicitely mentioned when declaring a function in many of the high-level programming languages, such as Java, C++, C, Prolog and many others.

A Java example could be:

public int someMethod()

In this example, the return type is int. This means that when that method is completed, it will return a value of type int.

In Java, the return type can be any object or interface type, or any of the primitive types. An example of a Java object type is java.lang.String, whereas char is a primitive Java type.