What’s the difference between a function and a method?
Swift version: 5.4
Some folks use “function” and “method” interchangeably, but there’s a small difference: both of them are reusable chunks of code, but methods belong to classes, structs, and enums, whereas functions do not.
So:
func thisIsAFunction() {
}
struct Person {
func thisIsAMethod() {
}
}Because methods always belong to a data type, they have a concept of self that functions do not. This is a special value passed in by Swift, and it refers to whatever instance the method was called on.
Swift uses the same keyword, func, for both functions and methods.
SPONSORED From August 2nd to 8th you can join a FREE crash course for mid/senior iOS devs who want to achieve an expert level of technical and practical skills – it’s the fast track to being a complete senior developer!
Sponsor Hacking with Swift and reach the world's largest Swift community!
Available from iOS 9.0
Similar solutions…
- SwiftUI tips and tricks
- All SwiftUI property wrappers explained and compared
- What’s the difference between a function and a closure?
- How to create live playgrounds in Xcode
- How to fix “argument of #selector refers to instance method that is not exposed to Objective-C”
About the Swift Knowledge Base
This is part of the Swift Knowledge Base, a free, searchable collection of solutions for common iOS questions.
