Return types

A method’s return type is always inferred by the compiler. However, you might want to specify it for two reasons:

1. To make sure that the method returns the type that you want
2. To make it appear in documentation comments

For example:

def some_method : String
  "hello"
end

The return type follows the type grammar.

Nil return type

Marking a method as returning Nil will make it return nil regardless of what it actually returns:

def some_method : Nil
  1 + 2
end
some_method # => nil

This is useful for two reasons:

1. Making sure a method returns nil without needing to add an extra nil at the end, or at every return point
2. Documenting that the method’s return value is of no interest

These methods usually imply a side effect.

Using Void is the same, but Nil is more idiomatic: Void is preferred in C bindings.

NoReturn return type

Some expressions won’t return to the current scope and therefore have no return type. This is expressed as the special return type NoReturn.

Typical examples for non-returning methods and keywords are return, exit, raise, next, and break.

This is for example useful for deconstructing union types:

string = STDIN.gets
typeof(string)                        # => String?
typeof(raise "Empty input")           # => NoReturn
typeof(string || raise "Empty input") # => String

The compiler recognizes that in case string is Nil, the right hand side of the expression string || raise will be evaluated. Since typeof(raise "Empty input") is NoReturn the execution would not return to the current scope in that case. That leaves only String as resulting type of the expression.

Every expression whose code paths all result in NoReturn will be NoReturn as well. NoReturn does not show up in a union type because it would essentially be included in every expression’s type. It is only used when an expression will never return to the current scope.

NoReturn can be explicitly set as return type of a method or function definition but will usually be inferred by the compiler.