The out keyword does the same job as ref but with different rules:
- Arguments do not need to be initialized before being passed into a method.
- The referenced parameter value does need to be initialized or assigned in the calling method before it's returned.
For instance, we could replace ref with out in UpdateDeathCount() as long as we initialized or assigned the countReference parameter before returning from the method:
public static string UpdateDeathCount(out int countReference)
{
countReference = 1;
return "Next time you'll be at number " + countReference;
}
Methods that use the out keyword are better suited to situations where you need to return multiple values from a single function, while the ref keyword works best when a reference value only needs to be modified.
With these new method features under our belts, it's time to revisit the big one: object-oriented programming (OOP). There's so much to this topic that it&apos...