How do I use pointers with arrays in c++ and return a pointer value?

Here is an attempt to answer. In your main(), you call the mode() function with mode(survey, n) while int survey[n]; is an array of int, so you may use int mode(int *pies, int size) instead of int mode(int *pies[], int size) (as the array int survey[n] can be implicitly converted into pointer).

However, you need to modify two more things in your function:

• int *mode=pies[0]; is wrong as pies[0] is the first element of an array of int, thus is an int, while int* mode is a pointer on an int which is incompatible. mode should be an int to receive pies[0]. The correct code is then int mode = pies[0].
• Your function signature is int mode(int *pies, int size), thus, again, you should return an int. You should then just return mode;

These are only hints on how to make the code compile. Your next step is to formalize what you would like it to do and then modify the code accordingly

NB: The correct practice is to think about what you would like to achieve first and then code afterwards (but let us say that this is for the sake of helping each other)

To get started using pointers, you may look at some simple tutorials at first:

• http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/arrays/
• https://www.programiz.com/c-programming/c-pointers
• https://www.programiz.com/c-programming/c-pointers-arrays
• https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/pointer-array-array-pointer/
• https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/how-to-return-a-pointer-from-a-function-in-c/
• https://www.tutorialspoint.com/cprogramming/c_return_pointer_from_functions.htm

Here is the modified code with the stated modifications above (it compiles):

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int mode(int *pies, int size) {


    int count = 1;
    int max = 0;
    int mode=pies[0];


    for (int i=0; i<size-1; i++)
    {
        if (pies[i] == pies[i+1])
        {
            count++;
            if (count>max)
            {
                max = count;
                mode = pies[i];

            }

        }
        else
            count = 1;

    }

    return mode;
}


int main() {

    int n;

    cout<<"Input the number of people: "<<endl;

    cin>>n;

    int survey[n];

    cout << "Enter the amount of pie eaten by each person:" << endl;


    for(int i = 0; i < n; i++) {

        cout <<"Person "<<(i + 1)<< ": "<<endl;

        cin>>survey[i];

    }

    cout<<"Mode: "<<mode(survey, n)<< endl;

        return 0;


}