From: Phillip Gawlowski <pg@...>
Date: 2009-12-26T06:54:01+09:00
Subject: Re: Making a counter for each word's occurrences in a string

On 25.12.2009 22:47, Ben Ben wrote:

> Thanks Stefano, I got the idea!  Especially when you explain the line 6,
> it's clearer to me now.  So whatever for loop did before line 6, all of
> those are stored in memory, then when you called line 6, it will return
> only the value part that got added to the hash a moment ago at one go
> right?  I hope that is what you mean.

Close. "counts", or, by extension, "return counts", hands the result of 
the method back to the caller. It includes all the results the method 
has produced (in your example, the word count).

To illustrate with a metaphor:
A method is like a production line at a factory.

It takes raw materials (input), and produces a good (a result). This 
production line can be simple, like making nails out of metal bits (a 
word count), to a whole car (a webapp, or a desktop application).

--
Phillip Gawlowski