Having trouble with atoi

[NewbGuy]

I have a function that is returning a string that looks like this:

char* getstring(char choice)
{

     does some stuff...

return(mystring);
}

Then back in my main I have this:

.
.
tempstring = getstring(mychar);

myinteger = atoi(tempstring);
.
.
.

The problem is that atoi keeps returning zero. After tempstring is returned from the function, it is a string which only contains digits, no letters or anything else, except for the null terminator at the end of the string.

I have run the program with a breakpoint at the atoi line and I can see that "tempstring" contains an integer. I can read in the Locals box:

"tempstring 0x0013fae8 "80" "

after I step through the atoi line, tempstring is empty and the atoi has put a 0 into myinteger.

I don't understand why this is happening. I have also tried using strtol in place of atoi, but with no luck.

[Salem]

Lemme guess, mystring is a local char array inside the getstring() function.

You can't do this!
The array goes out of scope (along with your data) as soon as you return.

[NewbGuy]

Yeah that was the problem. Thank you!