Why doesn't this code display any output?

Question

I wrote a function that printed out the min & max of the numbers in the list, but when I switched print with return the code doesn't seem to print a thing, so I ran the same code with the return statement in the python console and it work, I want to know why the code works with the python console in terminal and why it doesn't when I run the script as python3 Code.py

#!/usr/bin/env python3.5
#
#
def Ehlo():
    nums = [1,5,2,4,6,12,8,9,3]

    return (min(nums))
    #return (max(nums))

Ehlo()

You should read more about how return works. This should be a good start: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7129285/why-would-you-use-the-return-statement-in-python — Kevin K., Jul 27 '16 at 23:43
What did you expect the code to do by having two return statements ? maybe what you actually wanted is something like: `return min(nums), max(nums)` — Nir Alfasi, Jul 27 '16 at 23:45
Also see [here](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21278736/why-doesnt-python-print-return-values), [here](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3881434/difference-between-returns-and-printing-in-python), and a ton of other results that you can find by Googling the difference between printing and returning. — TigerhawkT3, Jul 27 '16 at 23:58
For the same reason that putting `1 + 1` in a file by itself and running it doesn't display `2`. — Karl Knechtel, Aug 12 '22 at 06:19

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited Jul 27 '16 at 23:50

2

You cannot use 2 returns. The first return will return the minimum value and the second return will never be reached.
The value returned is not being printed.

Try this -

def Ehlo():
   nums = [1,5,2,4,6,12,8,9,3]
   return (min(nums)),(max(nums))

print(Ehlo())

Output: (1,12)

edited Jul 27 '16 at 23:50

donkopotamus

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answered Jul 27 '16 at 23:42

aramase

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dkar · Answer 2 · 2016-07-27T23:48:43.883

0

This is how Python behaves: In a script you will always need a print statement to see a visible result. However, in the console entering the name of a variable (or returning something as in your case from a routine) will automatically print the value.

edited Jul 27 '16 at 23:48

answered Jul 27 '16 at 23:42

dkar

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Why doesn't this code display any output?

2 Answers2