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Definitions

A function is a general term used in programming. A function is a structure that requires some sort of data and based on this data, it performs a series of operations and finally returns a value. We know functions from software like Microsoft Excel. For instance the Average function takes a series of numbers (or ranges of numbers) as its arguments (we call the data needed by the function arguments) and returns the average of these values.

Some functions need several arguments, others can work without arguments, but usually they return one value and one value only. There are examples of functions that don't return values. We have already seen the MsgBox function. This function opens a dialog box and displays a message to the user.

Subroutines and procedures are the same thing. A subroutine is defined with the Sub keyword. A subroutine is a procedure, and the subroutine can be executed within a macro in SDL Passolo. So we will use the terms where they seem appropriate but they mean the same thing.