Functions can be declared the same places as other declarations. The syntax for functions is defined by the grammar for Function:
Function ::= Type ID '(' Parameters ')' Block
Block ::= '{' Declarations Statement* '}'
Statement ::= Block
| ';'
| Expression ';'
| ForLoop
| Iteration
| WhileLoop
| DoWhileLoop
| IfStatement
| ReturnStatement
ForLoop ::= 'for' '(' Expression ';' Expression ';' Expression ')' Statement
Iteration ::= 'for' '(' ID ':' Type ')' Statement
WhileLoop ::= 'while' '(' Expression ')' Statement
DoWhile ::= 'do' Statement 'while' '(' Expression ')' ';'
IfStatment ::= 'if' '(' Expression ')' Statement [ 'else' Statement ]
ReturnStatement ::= 'return' [ Expression ] ';'
The keyword for has two uses: One is a C/C++/Java like for-loop, and the other is a Java like iterator. The latter is primarily used to iterate over arrays indexed by scalars. It is however important to that for iterates over the elements of a type, whereas in Java is iterates over collections (e.g. arrays).
The scope of ID is the inner statement.
The following function returns the sum of two integer call-by-value arguments. The arguments are call by value.
int add(int a, int b)
{
return a + b;
}
The following procedure swaps the values of two integer call-by-reference parameters.
void swap(int &a, int &b)
{
int c = a;
a = b;
b = c;
return a;
}
The following procedure initializes an array such that each element contains its index in the array. Notice that as in C, the parameter is a call-by-reference parameter even though no ampersand it used in the declaration.
void initialize(int a[10])
{
for (i : int[0,9])
{
a[i] = i;
}
}