Question

I need a method that returns an array of enums and I tried:

note_name *AppSettings::getNoteMap(){
    note_name notes[] = {..}
}

I read somewhere on SO that I’m supposed to return the address of the first element of the array, so that’s why there’s a pointer. This is giving me a warning though: address of stack memory associated with local variable notes returned

How do I get rid of the warning and return the array properly?

Answer 1

You cannot return an array from a function, period. You can return a pointer to a dynamically allocated chunk of memory (I wouldn’t go this route), or take a pointer (along with the size) as an output argument, or return a pointer to a static array, or return a vector<T> or some other collection.

I would use a std::vector or a std::array.

std::vector<note_name> foo() {
    std::vector<note_name> ret;
    // populate 'ret'
    return ret;
}