How to return array in C++ not a pointer?

Question

I know how to return a pointer which points to the first element of the array, but my question is how would I return actual array, not a pointer to that array if that is even possible.

Similarly to how would I pass array to a function by reference:

void print_arr(int (&arr) [3])
{
    for(size_t i = 0; i < 3; ++i)
        std::cout << arr[i] << ' ';
}

I thought something like this:

int(&)[3] func(int (&arr) [3])
{
    // some code...
    return arr;
}

But it doesn't work. Here is the code in online compiler.

Answer 1

You cannot 'return arrays' directly in C or C++. One way you can use to get around that is declare a struct/union containing the array.

union arrayint3 {
    int i[3];
};
arrayint3 func(int(&arr)[3]) {
    arrayint3 arr = {.i = {1, 2, 3}};
    return arr;
}

You can also return an std::array. According to the linked Q&A:

Is it legal to return std::array by value, like so?

std::array<int, 3> f() {
    return std::array<int, 3> {1, 2, 3};
}

Yes it's legal.