C++ LANGUAGE RETURN ARRAY FROM FUNCTION

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C++ LANGUAGE RETURN ARRAY FROM FUNCTION

Return Array from Functions 

C++ does not allow to return an entire array as an 
argument to a function. However, you can return a pointer 
to an array by specifying the array's name without an index.
 
If you want to return a single-dimension array from a function, 
you would have to declare a function returning a pointer as in 
the following example: 

int * myFunction() 
{ 
. 
. 
. 
} 

Second point to remember is that C++ does not advocate to 
return the address of a local variable to outside of the 
function so you would have to define the local variable as staticvariable.
 
Now, consider the following function, which will generate 10 
random numbers and return them using an array and call this function as follows: 

#include <iostream> 
#include <ctime> 
 
using namespace std; 
 
// function to generate and retrun random numbers. 
int * getRandom( ) 
{ 
  static int  r[10]; 
 
  // set the seed 
  srand( (unsigned)time( NULL ) ); 
  for (int i = 0; i < 10; ++i) 
  { 
    r[i] = rand(); 
    cout << r[i] << endl; 
  } 
 
  return r; 
} 
 
// main function to call above defined function. 
int main () 
{ 
   // a pointer to an int. 
   int *p; 
 
   p = getRandom(); 
   for ( int i = 0; i < 10; i++ ) 
   { 
       cout << "*(p + " << i << ") : "; 
       cout << *(p + i) << endl; 
   } 
 
   return 0; 
} 
When the above code is compiled together and executed, 
it produces result something as follows: 

624723190 
1468735695 
807113585 
976495677 
613357504 
1377296355 
1530315259 
1778906708 
1820354158 
667126415 
*(p + 0) : 624723190 
*(p + 1) : 1468735695 
*(p + 2) : 807113585 
*(p + 3) : 976495677 
*(p + 4) : 613357504 
*(p + 5) : 1377296355 
*(p + 6) : 1530315259 
*(p + 7) : 1778906708 
*(p + 8) : 1820354158 
*(p + 9) : 667126415