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Functions returning a reference type

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• Function that returns a reference
  • Specifying a reference return type:

    DataType * functionName( .... ) { ... }

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  • Example:

    int *f() { ... this function will return a "pointer to int" ... }

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  • A complete example:

    /* ==================================== f(A, i) returns the address of A[i] ==================================== */ int *f( int A[], int i ) { int *p; p = &A[i]; return p; // Shorter: return &A[i]; } int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { int A[10] = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 }; int *p, i; p = f( A, 4 ); *p = 4000; for ( i = 0; i < 10; i++ ) printf("%d ", A[i]); printf("\n\n"); }

    Output:

    1 2 3 4 4000 6 7 8 9 10

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  • Example Program: (Demo above code)                                                
    • Prog file: click here

    How to run the program:

    Right click on link and save in a scratch directory To compile:   gcc ref-return1.c To run:          a.out