Return nothing or return void— What exactly does C# do at the end of a void Function() call?

Question

Consider the following C# function:

void DoWork()
{
    ...
}

The C# documentation states:

When used as the return t

Answer 1

First off, C# is compiled into IL, so the final representation post-JIT may differ.

With a void method, the method signature in IL will be marked as void, and the ret opcode will still exist. This means, from the standpoint of IL, the "returned" value on the call stack may or may not exist, but it will never get copied and used on the call site. The ret opcode will only push a return value if it exists, and this is not required to exist in a void returning method, so in many cases, it will not return anything, even in a low level conceptual standpoint.

However, for many lower-level languages (i.e. C) "void" has a slightly different meaning. Specifically, all blocks of code must return something.

This is not the case in the CLR. A void method can truly return nothing, as the ret opcode is allowed to not return anything. See OpCodes.Ret:

Returns from the current method, pushing a return value (if present) from the callee's evaluation stack onto the caller's evaluation stack.