return value in C function

Hello all,


As we know you can't return arrays from functions in programming language C. I am working on an open source code base written in C. While working on one of its function, I wanted to be sure if I have correctly understood the return value of the following function. Can someone please help me understand what exactly below function bucket_straw2_choose is returning?

Code:

---

static int bucket_choose (const struct crush_bucket_straw2 *bucket, int x, int r,
                          const struct crush_choose_arg *arg, int position) {
   
   
    __u32 *weights = get_choose_arg_weights(bucket, arg, position);
    __s32 *ids    = get_choose_arg_ids(bucket, arg);

for (i = 0; i < bucket->h.size; i++) {
             

dprintk("weight 0x%x item %d\n", weights[i], ids[i]);
       
if (weights[i]) {
    --
      draw = generate_exponential_distribution(bucket->h.hash,  x, ids[i],  r, 
                                                weights[i]);
        } else {
           
                    draw = S64_MIN;
            }

        if (i == 0 || draw > high_draw) {

            high = i;
            high_draw = draw;
        }
    }

    return bucket->h.items[high];
}





struct crush_bucket {
   
    __s32  id;       
    __u16  type;     
    __u8  alg;       
    __u8  hash;     
    __u32  weight;   
    __u32  size;   
    __s32  *items;   
};


struct crush_bucket_straw2 {
     
      struct crush_bucket h;
    __u32 *item_weights; 

};

---

bucket_straw2_choose does not appear in the code. Did you mean the bucket_choose function? That one is declared with a return type of int, so it returns an int. If you're confused by the static keyword, in this context that declares the function name as having internal linkage, i.e., in this source file (or more precisely, translation unit, i.e., source file + included headers, but that distinction isn't very important here), the name bucket_choose refers to this function, but in another source file it would refer to something else.

Cross-posted here -> return value in a C function - C++ Forum