HP C A.06.05 Reference Manual

Statements

return

Chapter 6176

Functions can return only a single value directly via the return statement. The return value

can be any type except an array or function. This means that it is possible to return more than

a single value indirectly by passing a pointer to an aggregate type. It is also possible to return

a structure or union directly. HP C implements this by passing the structure or union by

reference if the structure or union is greater than eight bytes.

Example

/* Program name is "return_example".

* This program finds the length of a word that is entered.

#include <stdio.h>

int find_length( char *string )

{

int i;

for (i =0; string[i] != ’\0’; i++);

return i;

}

int main( void )

{

char string[132];

int result;

int again = 1;

char answer;

printf( "This program finds the length of any word you ");

printf( "enter.\n" );

{

printf( "Enter the word: ");

fflush(stdin);

gets( string );

result = find_length( string );

printf( "This word contains %d characters. \n", result);

printf("Again? ");

scanf("%c", &answer);

} while (answer == ’Y’ || answer == ’y’);

}

If you execute this program, you get the following output: