Problem passing a pointer from a function back to main

[zolfaghar]

I have searched online, and reviewed the functions section of the text I am following. Still can not figure out why I can not point a pointer in main to the content created in a function. Here is my code:

#include <stdio.h>
char* monthName ()
{
char month [20] = "January";
char* pMonth;
pMonth = month;
printf("Printing month from monthName function %s\n", month);
/*while (*pMonth != '\0')
  {
    putch(*pMonth);
    pMonth++;
  }*/
return pMonth;
}
int main (void)
{
char* monthName();
char* currentMonth;
currentMonth = monthName();
putch('\n');
while (*currentMonth != '\0')
  {
    putch(*currentMonth);
    currentMonth++;
  }
}

Here is the result of GDB...

Starting program: c:\users\sansari\documents\source\programming_in_C/132.exe
[New Thread 7920.0x28c4]
[New Thread 7920.0x1b64]
Breakpoint 1, monthName () at 132.c:4
4       char month [20] = "January";
(gdb) p month
$1 = " \022@\000\000\000\000\000 \030@\000à_a\000\030ÿa"
(gdb) p month[0]
$2 = -96 ' '
(gdb) n
6       pMonth = month;
(gdb) p month
$3 = "January", '\000' <repeats 12 times>
(gdb) n
7       printf("Printing month from monthName function %s\n", month);
(gdb) p pMonth
$4 = 0x61fee8 "January"
(gdb) n
Printing month from monthName function January
13      return pMonth;
(gdb) n
14      }
(gdb) n
main () at 132.c:20
20      putch('\n');
(gdb) n
21      while (*currentMonth != '\0')
(gdb) p currentMonth
$5 = 0x61fee8 ""
(gdb) n
26      }
(gdb) p currentMonth
$6 = 0x61fee8 ""
(gdb)

[GReaper]

The problem isn't that you can't point to it, you obviously can. But since it isn't static, thus being held temporarily on the stack, there's no guarantee that it'll be there after the function returns. Undefined behavior and such.

[zolfaghar]

The problem isn't that you can't point to it, you obviously can. But since it isn't static, thus being held temporarily on the stack, there's no guarantee that it'll be there after the function returns. Undefined behavior and such.

Thanks. I switched my strategy, but now I am running into another issue. I have looked online, and I seem to be doing what is validated on different posts. But I get the error message, which says:

[CODE][$ gcc 132.c -o 132
132.c:2:16: error: unknown type name 'month'
void getMonth (month x)
^/CODE]

Here is my implementation

#include <stdio.h>
void getMonth (month x)
{
}
int main (void)
{
  enum month { January = 1, February = 2, March , April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December };
  enum month aMonth;
  int days;
  printf ("Enter month number: ");
  scanf ("%i", &aMonth);
  switch (aMonth) {
    case January:
    case March:
    case May:
    case July:
    case August:
    case October:
    case December:
               days = 31;
               break;
    case April:
    case June:
    case September:
    case November:
                days = 30;
                break;
    case February:
                days = 28;
                break;
     default:
           printf ("bad month number\n");

[zolfaghar]

This is basically what I am trying to do: How to pass ENUM as function argument in C - Stack Overflow

[zolfaghar]

This is basically what I am trying to do: How to pass ENUM as function argument in C - Stack Overflow

I found the solution to my problem. I had to define the enum globally.