Question

Is there any way to do this in a condensed form?

GLfloat coordinates[8];
...
coordinates[0] = 1.0f;
coordinates[1] = 0.0f;
coordinates[2] = 1.0f;
coordinates[3] = 1.0f;
coordinates[4] = 0.0f;
coordinates[5] = 1.0f;
coordinates[6] = 0.0f;
coordinates[7] = 0.0f;
return coordinates;

Something like coordinates = {1.0f, ...};?

Answer 1

If you really to assign values (as opposed to initialize), you can do it like this:

 GLfloat coordinates[8]; 
 static const GLfloat coordinates_defaults[8] = {1.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f ....};
 ... 
 memcpy(coordinates, coordinates_defaults, sizeof(coordinates_defaults));

 return coordinates;