Returning a Value from the Ask Method

• Return Console.ReadLine from Ask
  • Update return type to string
  • Get rid of answer variable
  • Use return instead

    static string Ask(string question) 
    {
        Console.WriteLine(question);
        return Console.ReadLine();
    }

    static void Main()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Welcome to the cat food store!");

        string entry = Ask("How many cans are you ordering?");
        Console.WriteLine(entry);
    }

• Right now the user types their answer on a separate line from the question.
  • That's because we print the question using Console.WriteLine, which prints a string and then skips to the next line.
  • It might look a little neater if the typed answer appeared on the same line as the question.
  • We can do this with the Console.Write method, which prints a string and then stays on the same line: Console.Write(question);

If we go to the terminal and run dotnet run, everything works!

We've completed a second feature for our program! We ask the user the quantity of cans they want, call the gets method to get their keyboard entry, and store the return value from gets in a variable.

Cat Food Store Features

• Display welcome message
• Ask for quantity
• Calculate total
• Discount for large orders

There's just one minor issue with the program. When we ask the user how many cans they want to buy, our question runs right up against the place their keyboard input is shown. That looks a little less than professional. To fix this, we're going to need to learn more about strings.

Just like most other programming languages, C# uses strings to store text. We'll learn all about them in the next stage. See you there!