Thread: Returning a pointer from a function just isn't working

Happy Labor Day Weekend. I've got a pointer question that I haven't been able to resolve. I'm trying to pass a string to a function which removes "mdata," from the beginning of the string and then returns a pointer to the new string. It ain't werkin... I'm not defining my pointer variables correctly or something.

Code:

#include<stdio.h>
#include<string.h>


char *rmDataForDBmarker(char *stringToClean, char *whatToRemove);


int main()
{
    char logToKeep[] = "mdata,";                                 // this is the key word of the log entry to keep
    char *logFinder = "mdata,b1a571,3324 d,123.46,987.99";
    char *dataMarkerRmvd;


    printf("\n string before the function: %s", logFinder);
    dataMarkerRmvd = rmDataForDBmarker(logFinder, logToKeep);
    printf("\n back from rmDataForDBmarker(): dataMarkerRmvd = %s", dataMarkerRmvd);
}


char *rmDataForDBmarker(char *stringToClean, char *whatToRemove){ // in this case
    printf("\n Now the code is in the function...");
    printf("\n The next stringToClean is = %s", stringToClean);
    int i, j = 0, k = 0,n = 0;
    int flag = 0;
    char *neww[100];                        // declaring neww as a pointer


    for(i = 0 ; stringToClean[i] != '\0' ; i++)
    {
        k = i;
        while(stringToClean[i] == whatToRemove[j])
        {
            i++,j++;
            if(j == strlen(whatToRemove))
            {
                flag = 1;
                break;
            }
        }
    j = 0;
    if(flag == 0){
        i = k;
    }
    else{
        flag = 0;
    }
    printf("\nstringToClean[i] = %c", stringToClean[i]);
    n++;
    printf("\ni=%d  n=%d", i, n);
    neww[n] = stringToClean[i];
    printf("\n neww[n] = %c", neww[n]);
    }
    neww[n] = '\0';
    printf("\n Here's the original string: %s", stringToClean);
    printf("\n String with %s removed: %s", whatToRemove, neww);
    printf("\n The memory location of neww: %p", neww);
    return neww;                        // trying to return the pointer to neww
}

When I compile it, the build log provides some insight that I don't understand:

Code:

C:\work\arduino\trash\Untitled6.c|46|warning: assignment to 'char *' from 'char' makes pointer from integer without a cast [-Wint-conversion]|

C:\work\arduino\trash\Untitled6.c|53|warning: returning 'char **' from a function with incompatible return type 'char *' [-Wincompatible-pointer-types]|

C:\work\arduino\trash\Untitled6.c|53|warning: function returns address of local variable [-Wreturn-local-addr]|

I can see in the output that the string looks to be written to the "neww" string. The output looks like this:



I'm a novice coder. If someone could point me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it.