Pass a string in a struct to a function and return it

Question

I want to return the name of the smallest city population-wise, if it is the second city. (Please don't mind the if statement, I know it's bland), the missing return is what bothers me.

I assume I should declare a pointer inside the function rSmallestCity, like *rtrn but I guess the source variable is destroyed before it is used?

typedef struct Coordinate{
    int x,y;
}Coordinate;

typedef struct city{
    char name[20];
    int population;
    Coordinate coordinates;
}city;

char *rSmallestCity(city **cl, int n)
{
     char *rtrn = NULL;
     if(cl[n-2]->population>cl[n-1]->population)
     {
         rtrn = &cl[n-1]->name;
     }
     return rtrn;
}

int main()
{
    city c1 ={.name="Mumbai", .population=310, .coordinates.x=3, .coordinates.y=4};
    city c2 ={.name="Delhi", .population=300, .coordinates.x=3, .coordinates.y=2};
    city *clist[2];
    clist[0]=&c1;
    clist[1]=&c2;
    printf("\n%s is smallest\n",rSmallestCity(clist,2));
}

warning: assignment to 'char ' from incompatible pointer type 'char ()[20]' [-Wincompatible-pointer-types]|

Answer 1

I assume I should declare a pointer inside the function rSmallestCity, like *rtrn but I guess the source variable is destroyed before it is used?

A good question. And your assumption is correct. Creating a variable inside a function it's existence ends upon leaving the function. But in this case, because the struct member name is already a char * you do not need to create another variable. Just return c1.name. (see code example below.)

A few other suggestions:

In the struct declaration:

typedef struct Coordinate{
    int x,y;
}Coordinate;

You've used the same symbol (Coordinate) for the struct name, and for it's typedef. This is not a good practice. If you need both a struct name and a typedef, pick different symbols. BTW, in this this example, only one or the other is needed. Say you pick the typedef, then the struct is completely defined by:

typedef struct {
    int x,y;
}Coordinate;

That suggestion applies to both struct declarations in your example code.

The signatures for the main function do not include int main(){...} rather
int main(void){..., return 0;} and int main(int argc, char *argv[]){..., return 0;}

The following code example illustrates some of the other suggestions for improvements in comments under your post,

typedef struct {
    int x,y;
}Coordinate;

typedef struct {
    char name[20];
    int population;
    Coordinate coordinates;
}city;

//return char * rather than char to allow for full null terminated char array (string)
char * rSmallestCity(city c1[],int cityCount)//generisize function prototype to 
{                                            //to easily accommodate bigger arrays if needed
    long long size, sizeKeep = 8e9; //index and population. initialize larger than possible population
    int indexKeep = 0;
    //note you do not need to define a char *, the struct already contains one

    for(int i=0; i<cityCount; i++)//use a loop rather than a single comparison, keep the smalles
    {
        size = c1[i].population; 
        sizeKeep = (size < sizeKeep) ? indexKeep = i, size  : sizeKeep;
    }

    printf("\n%s\n",c1[indexKeep].name);
    return c1[indexKeep].name;
};

int main(void)//use minimum signature for main, and call return before leaving.
{
        //combining your original declarations and assignments for struct
        //into a single declaration/definition.
        city c1[] = {{.name="Mumbai", .population=310, .coordinates.x=3, .coordinates.y=4},
                    {.name="Delhi",  .population=300, .coordinates.x=3, .coordinates.y=2}};
        int cityCount = sizeof(c1)/sizeof(c1[0]);

        printf("\n%s is smallest",rSmallestCity(c1, cityCount));

        return 0;
};