#262 – Passing Data to a Method Using Parameters

You can pass one or more data values to a method using parameters.  A parameter in a method is just a variable, usable only within that method, that refers to a piece of data passed into the method.

Here’s an example of an instance method in a Dog class.  The Bark methods accepts a phrase for the dog to bark and the number of times that he should bark.  It then uses this data to do the barking.

        public void Bark(string barkPhrase, int numberBarks)
        {
            for (int i = 0; i < numberBarks; i++)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("{0} says: {1}", Name, barkPhrase);
            }
        }

We would call the Bark method on a Dog object as follows:

            Dog kirby = new Dog();
            kirby.Name = "Kirby";

            kirby.Bark("Wooferooni", 3);
            kirby.Bark("Rowf", 1);

And we’d get the following output:

The calling code invokes the method and passes a value for each parameter into the method.