can a function return 2 values?

ok, I'm use to making functions that return one value, where I usually just write someting like:

return ( something ) ;

and I get a value for my preceeding funciton.

but right now I am trying to write a function that takes no inputs
but brings back 2 values to its preceeding function. I've been trying things like:

return ( x = something, y = something ) ;

but it doesnt work. i have the x and y variables in the preceeding fucntion, i've tried different variations of it but can't get it to work.

does anyone know how to make a function return 2 values to two differnent variable in your main funciton?

thank you

You cannot 'return' multiple values, but you can instead pass pointers to the variables to your function. e.g.

Code:

---

void
f(int *x, int *y)
{
    x = 1;
    y = 2;
}
int
main(void)
{
    int a, b;
    f(&a, &b);
    return 0;
}

---

If however, you want your function to take no inputs, you could return a struct containg multiple fields. Or, you could make the variables public.

functions in C are basically defined like they are in math. You can give it multiple inputs but you still only get one output. Now there are lots of tricks to get around this, such as passing the variables as a pointer or returning a structure that contains the information