BLACK FRIDAY: Save 50% on all my Swift books and bundles! >>

What’s the difference between a function and a method?

Swift version: 5.10

Paul Hudson    @twostraws   

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.

Save 50% in my WWDC sale.

SAVE 50% All our books and bundles are half price for Black Friday, so you can take your Swift knowledge further without spending big! Get the Swift Power Pack to build your iOS career faster, get the Swift Platform Pack to builds apps for macOS, watchOS, and beyond, or get the Swift Plus Pack to learn advanced design patterns, testing skills, and more.

Save 50% on all our books and bundles!

Available from iOS 9.0

Similar solutions…

About the Swift Knowledge Base

This is part of the Swift Knowledge Base, a free, searchable collection of solutions for common iOS questions.

BUY OUR BOOKS
Buy Pro Swift Buy Pro SwiftUI Buy Swift Design Patterns Buy Testing Swift Buy Hacking with iOS Buy Swift Coding Challenges Buy Swift on Sundays Volume One Buy Server-Side Swift Buy Advanced iOS Volume One Buy Advanced iOS Volume Two Buy Advanced iOS Volume Three Buy Hacking with watchOS Buy Hacking with tvOS Buy Hacking with macOS Buy Dive Into SpriteKit Buy Swift in Sixty Seconds Buy Objective-C for Swift Developers Buy Beyond Code

Was this page useful? Let us know!

Average rating: 4.0/5

 
Unknown user

You are not logged in

Log in or create account
 

Link copied to your pasteboard.