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how to return more than one value from a function?

Sharat Malaler
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    Many duplicates on SO already, for C, C++ and other languages, e.g. [can a function return more than one value?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2571831/can-a-function-return-more-than-one-value) – Paul R Jan 02 '11 at 15:31

5 Answers5

5

A function can only have a single return value. You could either pack multiple values into a compound data type (e.g. a struct), or you could return values via function parameters. Of course, such parameters would have to be passed using pointers to memory declared by the caller.

David Heffernan
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2

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Declare method like this foo (char *msg, int *num, int *out1, int *out2); and call it like this

int i=10;
char c='s';
int out1;
int out2;
foo(&c,&i,&out1,&out2);

Now what ever values u assign to out1 and out2 in function will be available after the function returns.

2

Return a structure having more than one members.

Community
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Tasawer Khan
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1

In C, one would generally do it using pointers:

int foo(int x, int y, int z, int* out);

Here, the function returns one value, and uses out to "return" another value. When calling this function, one must provide the out parameter with a pointer pointing to allocated memory. The function itself would probably look something like this:

int foo(int x, int y, int z, int* out) {
    /* Do some work */
    *out = some_value;
    return another_value;
}

And calling it:

int out1, out2;
out1 = foo(a, b, c, &out2);
You
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1

You cannot return more than 1 value from a function. But there is a way. Since you are using C, you can use pointers.

Example:

// calling function:
foo(&a, &b);
printf("%d %d", a, b);
// a is now 5 and b is now 10.

// called function:
void foo(int* a, int* b) {
   *a = 5;
   *b = 10;
}
Neigyl R. Noval
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0

Functions can return arrays or lists

ddp
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