Return a 2d array from a function - c

Question

I am a newbie to C.
I am trying to return a 2d array from a function.
It is something like this
int *MakeGridOfCounts(int Grid[][6])
{
int cGrid[6][6] = {{0, }, {0, }, {0, }, {0, }, {0, }, {0, }};
int (*p)[6] = cGrid;
return (int*)p;
}
I know this causes an error, need help. thanks

Answer 1

The C language has a basic flaw: it is impossible to return arrays from functions.
There are many workarounds for this; i'll describe three.
Replace by a pointer to an array
Return a pointer instead of an array itself. This leads to another problem in C: when a function returns a pointer to something, it should usually allocate the something dynamically. You should not forget to deallocate this later (when the array is not needed anymore).
typedef int (*pointer_to_array)[6][6];
pointer_to_array workaround1()
{
pointer_to_array result = malloc(sizeof(*result));
(*result)[0][0] = 0;
(*result)[1][0] = 0;
(*result)[2][0] = 0;
(*result)[3][0] = 0;
(*result)[4][0] = 0;
(*result)[5][0] = 0;
return result;
}
Replace by a pointer to int
A 2-D array appears just as a sequence of numbers in memory, so you can replace it by a pointer to first element. You clearly stated that you want to return an array, but your example code returns a pointer to int, so maybe you can change the rest of your code accordingly.
int *workaround2()
{
int temp[6][6] = {{0}}; // initializes a temporary array to zeros
int *result = malloc(sizeof(int) * 6 * 6); // allocates a one-dimensional array
memcpy(result, temp, sizeof(int) * 6 * 6); // copies stuff
return result; // cannot return an array but can return a pointer!
}
Wrap with a structure
It sounds silly, but functions can return structures even though they cannot return arrays! Even if the returned structure contains an array.
struct array_inside
{
int array[6][6];
};
struct array_inside workaround3()
{
struct array_inside result = {{{0}}};
return result;
}

Answer 2

It sounds like you want a function returning pointer to array[6] of int:
int (*makeGrid())[6]
{
return calloc(6*6,sizeof(int)); //zeros the memory as in your example.
}
You would call and use it like so:
int (*arr)[6] = makeGrid();
arr[4][3] = 3; //etc...

Answer 3

Try this out, compiles fine with GCC on my mac..
typedef struct _intGrid_t{
int **data;
int width;
int height;
} *IntGrid;
IntGrid makeGridWithSize(int width, int height);
IntGrid makeGridWithSize(int width, int height)
{
IntGrid grid = malloc(sizeof(struct _intGrid_t));
int **data = (int **) malloc(sizeof(int *) * width);
for (int i = 0; i < width; i++) {
data[i] = malloc(sizeof(int) * height);
memset(data[i], 0, sizeof(int) * height);
}
grid->data = data;
grid->width = width;
grid->height = height;
return grid;
}
void printGrid(IntGrid grid);
void printGrid(IntGrid grid)
{
printf(" { \n");
for (int i =0; i < grid->width; i++) {
printf(" { ");
for (int j = 0; j < grid->height; j++) {
printf("%i", grid->data[i][j]);
if (j != grid->height - 1)
{
printf(", ");
}
}
printf(" } \n");
}
printf(" } \n");
}
void freeGrid(IntGrid grid);
void freeGrid(IntGrid grid)
{
for (int i = 0; i < grid->width; i++) {
free(grid->data[i]);
}
free(grid->data);
free(grid);
}
int main (int argc, const char * argv[])
{
srand((int) time(NULL));
IntGrid grid = makeGridWithSize(10, 10);
for (int i = 0; i < grid->width; i++) {
for (int j = 0; j < grid->height; j++) {
grid->data[i][j] = rand() % 10;
}
}
printGrid(grid);
freeGrid(grid);
return 0;
}