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In the most common case, call by value, a parameter acts within the subroutine as a new local variable initialized to the value of the argument (a local (isolated) copy of the argument if the argument is a variable), but in other cases, e.g. call by reference, the argument variable supplied by the caller can be affected by actions within the ...
In computer programming, two notions of parameter are commonly used, and are referred to as parameters and arguments—or more formally as a formal parameter and an actual parameter. For example, in the definition of a function such as y = f(x) = x + 2, x is the formal parameter (the parameter) of the defined function.
The argument of a circular function is an angle. The argument of a hyperbolic function is a hyperbolic angle. A mathematical function has one or more arguments in the form of independent variables designated in the definition, which can also contain parameters. The independent variables are mentioned in the list of arguments that the function ...
This article makes a big deal about the distinction between the terms argument vs. parameter, but I asked several career programmers and computer scientists, and none are used to making this distinction in practice, and in looking at a variety of programming and computer science books, the names argument and parameter are often used ...
With named parameters, it is usually possible to provide the arguments in any order, since the parameter name attached to each argument identifies its purpose. This reduces the connascence between parts of the program. A few languages support named parameters but still require the arguments to be provided in a specific order.
A copy of the argument is passed in and the value computed during the call is copied to the argument on return: Algol, Swift in-out parameters by name: Like a macro – replace the parameters with the unevaluated argument expressions, then evaluate the argument in the context of the caller every time that the callable uses the parameter: Algol ...
^c In Fortran, function/subroutine parameters are called arguments (since PARAMETER is a language keyword); the CALL keyword is required for subroutines. ^d Instead of using "foo", a string variable may be used instead containing the same value.
Manipulation of these parameters can be done by using the routines in the standard library header < stdarg. h >. In C++, the return type can also follow the parameter list, which is referred to as a trailing return type. The difference is only syntactic; in either case, the resulting signature is identical: