Return statement on Python does not seem to work (on Spyder)

Question

I have been using Python for a while and have had no problems with the IDE I've used (I've used WingIDE, now I use Spyder).

But when I started testing some code, which I typed on the editor, today, the return statement does not seem to work. Then I wrote even more basic tests which see what return does, and found out that other functions do not work properly as well.

For example for the function,

def test():
    return 2

'''the code below is written in the editor'''
test()
print(type(test()))
print(test())

After running the code on the editor.

test() returns 'nothing' (but it's not actually 'nothing/None/blank space')

type(test()) returns 'nothing' (but it's not actually 'nothing/None/blank space')

print(type(test()) prints 'class 'int' '

print(test()) prints 2

But when I type test() on the console, it returns 2, and when I type type(test()) on the console, it returns class: int.

Note that the same results occur before and after I updated Spyder. And previously, the code in the editor functions the same way as the code in the console, as in typing test() in the editor would have returned 2 when I run the code in the editor.

Python/Spyder hasn't done anything this strange before, what happened?

Here's a visualization. Code in editor

Result after running code in editor displayed in the console

Answer 1

Assuming that the missing output of lines 116-118 is what upsets you:

The editor is handling your code as a normal python script which means statements ala test() don't print their result.

That you get the result of something displayed immediately is a special function of the python console and not normal python behavior.

To actually print the result you have to call print(test()) as you did in line 119-120

---

Update: After some testing in PyCharm I got the following behavioir:

Copy&Pasting into the python console:

def test():
    return 2
test()
>>press enter

indeed results in a blank output, but this:

def test():
    return 2
>>press enter
test()
>>press enter

prints 2 as expected. So my conclusion is that Spyder is maybe not displaying the return value because it was executing a multi-instruction script instead of a single operation.