How to return an array from a function

I'm relatively new to C and I'm having trouble returning an array from a function. Apologies if this have been answered elsewhere but I can't find it. I read somewhere about returning the first element and using a pointer to find the the other elements.

A simplified version of my code is:

Code:

int main()
{
  int array[3];
  array[0] = func(); 
}

int func()
{
  static int array[3];
  array[0]=5;
  array[1]=6;
  array[2]=7;

  return array[0];
}

This returns the first element but I don't know how to return the other elements.

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.

You can return a pointer to the array. If the array is not static within the function, you must return a dynamically allocated array instead.

Code:

int *func_static(void)
{
        static int arr[5] = {0};
        return arr;
}

int *func_dynamic(void)
{
        int *arr = malloc(5 * sizeof(int));
        return arr;
}

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.