Return Outside The Javascript Function

Michael Zippo 04.11.2021

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A return statement sends a value of a function to a main program. If you specify a return declaration outside of a function, you will encounter the message "SyntaxError: ’return’ external function" . Error

In this guide, we explore what the external "return" function " means and why it is triggered. We will look at an example of this error so that you can understand how to fix it in your program.

SyntaxError: external function ’return’

Return statements can only be included in a function. This is because return statements send values ‚Äã‚Äãfrom a function to a main program. Without a function to send values ‚Äã‚Äãfrom, a return statement would have no clear purpose.

Return statements are found at the end of a block of code in a function. Consider the following example:

Our return statement is the last line of code in our function. A return statement can be used in an if statement to specify multiple potential values ‚Äã‚Äãthat a function can return.

An example scenario

We are going to write a program that calculates whether or not a student has passed a computer science test. To start with, define a function that checks if a student passed or failed. The test limit is 50 points.

Our function can return two values: True or False. If a student’s grade is greater than 50 (beyond the pass / fail limit), our program returns True. Otherwise, False is returned. Our program displays the value "Checked" regardless of the result of our if statement so that we can be sure that a vote has been verified.

Now that we have written this function, we can call it in our main program. First, we need to ask the user for the name of the student whose program is to vote verification and the student’s vote. We can do this using an ’ input () statement :

The value of the "vote " is converted to an integer so you can compare with the value 50 in our function. We call our function to check if a student has passed the computer science test:

We call the check_if_passed () function to determine if a student has passed the test. If the student has passed the test, a message is printed on the console informing us of the positive result; otherwise, we are informed that the student has not passed the test.

We run our code to see if it works:

An error was returned.

The solution

We have specified a return statement outside of a function. Let’s go back to our check_if_passed () function. If we look at the last line of code, we can see that our last return declaration is not correctly indented .

The statement that returns False appears after our function, rather than at the end of our function. We can correct this error by meaning our return declaration at the correct level:

The return statement is now part of our function. It will return False if a student’s grade is not greater than 50. Let’s run our program again:

Our program correctly calculates that a student has passed the test.

Conclusion

The "SyntaxError: ’return’ outside function" error is generated when specifying a return statement outside of a function. this error, make sure that all of your return statements are properly indented and appear inside a function rather than after a function.

You now have the knowledge to correct this error as an experienced Python programmer !

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We hope this article has helped you to resolve the problem. Apart from Return Outside The Javascript Function, check other __main__ Python module-related topics.

Want to excel in Python? See our review of the best Python online courses 2023. If you are interested in Data Science, check also how to learn programming in R.

By the way, this material is also available in other languages:

Oliver Emmerson

Singapore | 2023-02-01

Thanks for explaining! I was stuck with Return Outside The Javascript Function for some hours, finally got it done 🤗. Will use it in my bachelor thesis

Manuel Lehnman

Berlin | 2023-02-01

Simply put and clear. Thank you for sharing. Return Outside The Javascript Function and other issues with exp was always my weak point 😁. Checked yesterday, it works!

Marie Wu

Massachussetts | 2023-02-01

string Python module is always a bit confusing 😭 Return Outside The Javascript Function is not the only problem I encountered. Will get back tomorrow with feedback

Return Outside The Javascript Function

SyntaxError: external function ’return’

An example scenario

The solution

Conclusion

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