Remix - Solidity IDE - function revealWinners not public

Question

I defined a modifier in my contract Auction

modifier onlyOwner() {                                 //Part 2 Task 1
    require (msg.sender == beneficiary);
    _;
}

This modifier should be used in the revealWinners function instead of public. But it's not working and I don't know why.

function revealWinners() onlyOwner returns {                       //Part 2 Task 1
     for (uint id = 0; id < 3; id++) { 
         Item storage currentItem=items[id]; 
         if (currentItem.itemTokens.length != 0){
             uint randomIndex = (block.number / currentItem.itemTokens.length)% currentItem.itemTokens.length; 
             uint winnerId = currentItem.itemTokens[randomIndex];
             winners[id] = winners[winnerId];               //Part 1 Task 6 – 1 line
        }
    }
}

I got the message: Expected token LParen got 'LBrace' (behind returns). Who can assist me?

Answer 1

Simply you omitted to specify the return type, if any.

If you do not use it, omit ‘returns’.

function revealWinners() public onlyOwner { 
...

Accordingly to your further comments, you can write the function as above remaining sure that nobody different from the ‘owner’ shall be able to call it.

‘public’ (like ‘internal’, ‘external’, view’, ‘pure’, etc.) is a general attribute of a function, onlyOwner is a ‘modifier’ that is a way to prepend to the function some special code (in your case: ‘require (msg.sender==owner)’.

You can have function being public but using one or more modifier and the behavior shall depends on the specific combination.

In the case you simply want that only owner shall be to call it, declaring it ‘public onlyOwner’ is fine.