Question

Your customer wants to have the Commerce pricing function invoke a Util library function applyDiscounts(), which applies discounts on the distributor price, the reseller price, and the end-customer price, and then returns the discounted values.

Identify three approaches that can be used to pass these values back to the Commerce pricing function.

A. Add all values to an array and return the array.
B. Construct a return result string in the following format and return this string:
documentNumber ~ variableName ~ value [ | documentNumber ~ variableName ~ value ]*
C. Add these values to a dictionary along with appropriate keys and return this dictionary.
D. Return the values by using multiple return statements.

Answer 1

The Commerce pricing function 'applyDiscounts()' can return multiple values using either an array, a formatted string, or a dictionary. Multiple return statements from a single function are typically not possible.

Step-by-step explanation:

The question relates to how a function within a Commerce pricing system, specifically applyDiscounts() from a Util library, can return multiple values to another function. There are several programming techniques that can be used to pass multiple values from one function to another, but the ones outlined in the question include:

• Returning an array: This approach involves adding all the discounted values into an array and then returning this array.
• Returning a formatted string: Construct a string that encapsulates all the values using a delimiter such as the tilde (~) and pipe (|) symbols and then return this string.
• Returning a dictionary: By adding key-value pairs of the discounted values into a dictionary and returning it, the calling function can easily retrieve the data based on the keys defined.

Regarding the option D provided, multiple return statements in a single function are not possible in most programming languages because a function can only return once. Therefore, options A, B, and C are practical solutions for returning multiple values from applyDiscounts() to the pricing function.