Fmethod

This instruction declares a method in a class. It is used to declare methods that return a value. Methods that do not return any value are declared with the Method instruction.

Most CRUD method declarations are automatically generated in class STC files. These files contain Fmethod declarations with method bodies that dispatch to events labels. The method's local scope is active when execution branches out to the event labels.

Syntax

Fmethod METHOD_NAME [ '(' args_list ')' ]

The declaration is similar to [Subprog](../4gl/subprog.md) and [Funprog](../4gl/funprog.md) declarations. The method name is followed by an optional list of parameters.

The body of the method must be terminated by an End result instruction, where result is the value returned to the calling program.

Invocation

A method behaves like a Subprog or Funprog. A new scope is pushed upon entry and popped when End is reached. This scope contains a fresh set of local ([L]) variables. The local variables of the calling program are inaccessible.

The this keyword gives access to the instance to which the method has been applied.

See also

callmet, fmet, Method.