how to return struct variable from a function in c programming?

Question

I created a local structure student c inside the function, how to return student c from function to the the student d in the main fuction?

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
struct student
{
     char name[10];
}a,b;
struct student name(struct student *ptr)
{
    struct student c; 
    strcpy(c.name,ptr->name);
    return c.name;    //error
}
int main()
{
    printf("enter name");
    scanf("%c",&a.name);
    b.name=name (&a.name);   //error
    printf("%c",b.name);
    return 0;
}

Given a function that returns an integer, how do you return the integer? int i = 37; return i;? And you call it int j; …; j = intfunc(29); or similar; or int k = 31; int j = intptrfunc(&k);, etc. So, you return a structure the same way: struct student c; …initialization…; return c;. How do you assign the structure in the call: struct student b; …; b = name(&a); (which is also how you pass a pointer to the structure). You don't specify the elements of the structure; you specify the structure variable. — Jonathan Leffler
– Jonathan Leffler, Commented Mar 30, 2019 at 6:40

4386427 · Accepted Answer · 2019-03-30 07:36:25Z

Your question:

how to return struct variable from a function in c programming?

does not match your code.

In your code you try to return a single struct member (i.e. c.name) but not the whole struct. Since the struct member is a char array (to be used as a string it seems) you get a lot of errors because i C you can't assign string variables (aka char array variables) using the = operator.

If you really wanted to return a struct simply do:

struct student name(struct student *ptr)
{
    struct student c; 
    strcpy(c.name,ptr->name);
    return c;    // Just use c instead of c.name;
}

and the call from main would be:

b = name(&a);

BTW:

scanf("%c",&a.name);

is wrong. I assume you want to read a word - not just a character - so %s is the specifier to use. Like: scanf("%9s", a.name);

Notice that scanf with %s only allows scan of 1 word. As a name can be several words you may want to use fgets instead.

This also applies to the printf, i.e. use %s instead of %c

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