Thread: How to return an array from a function

Hi,
I'm new to C as well. Sorry if my suggestion turns out to be wrong.
As far as I understand, for a function to return an array it should be declared as returning a pointer to a desired type, in your code to a type int. (e.g int * func(void))
The return statement should be something like (return array). The name of an array is a pointer to the 1st element of an array.
It probably defies the purpose of your task, but you may want to consider the following code:

Code:

#include <stdio.h>

#define SIZE 3

/* function prototype; ar[] being a pointer to type int;
 * n being array size */
void func(int ar[], int n);

int main(void)
{
	int i;	/* counter variable */

	/* declare an array of 3 ints */
	int array[SIZE];

	/* call func() to initialise array[]; pass array name, itself a pointer and
         * an array size */
	func(array, SIZE);

  	/* print contents of array */
	for (i = 0; i < SIZE; i++)
		printf("%d ", array[i]);
	printf("\n");

	return 0;
}

void func(int ar[], int n)
{
	int i;
	for (i = 0; i < n; i++)
		ar[i] = i + 5;	/* any other numbers desired */
}

You may also want to see this link for an answer to how to return arrays from functions.

Of course, if you use dynamic memory as in the second example, you must free it. Therefore, the preferred way of doing this is doing it like in sashaKap's example.