In a C# public method, what does the `int` indicate apart from the type integer?

Question

In C#, when defining a public method like:

public int myMethod(String someString)
{  
   //code  
}

What does the int indicate apart from the type integer? What confuses me is that the method is using a String as arguments in this case.

Answer 1

It is the return type of the method. In this case a 32-bit signed integer with a range of

-2,147,483,648 .. +2,147,483,647

It corresponds to the .NET type System.Int32. int is just a handy C# alias for it.

You would return a value like this

public int Square(int i)
{
    return i * i;
}

And you could call it like this

int sqr = Square(7); // Returns 49
// Or
double d = Math.Sin(Square(3));

If you do not need the return value, you can safely ignore it.

int i;
Int32.TryParse("123", out i); // We ignore the `bool` return value here.

If you have no return value you would use the keyword void in place of the type. void is not a real type.

public void PrintSquare(int i)
{
    Console.WriteLine(i * i);
}

And you would call it like this

PrintSquare(7);

---

The method in your example accepts a string as input parameter and returns an int as result. A practical example would be a method that counts the number of vowels in a string.

public int NumberOfVowels(string s)
{
    const string vowels = "aeiouAEIOU";

    int n = 0;
    for (int i = 0; i < s.Length; i++) {
        if (vowels.Contains(s[i])) {
            n++;
        }
    }
    return n;
}