Practice 38.2 Roll the dice

Question

Can someone help?

I solved the practice as below, however there is a strange behavior which doesn't make sense.
if I declare a variable "result" inside "max" function's body like that

int max(int num1, int num2) {

int result;

if (num1 >= num2){
int result = num1;
} else result = num2;
return result;
}

the output fails to solve the practice if the input values are equal; meaning that only test cases 2 & 3 are solved correctly and the rest are incorrect.

if I declare the variable "result" as a parameter like that

int max(int num1, int num2, int result) {

if (num1 >= num2){
int result = num1;
} else result = num2;
return result;
}

all test cases are then marked correct

{{my question is}}

what is the difference between declaring a variable inside the function's body and declaring it as a parameter/argument?

in other words
why would the first solution's output be not working when the input values are equal and second solution works?

solved practice code

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int max(int num1, int num2, int result) {
//complete the function

if (num1 >= num2){
int result = num1;
} else result = num2;
return result;

}

int main() {
//getting inputs
int first;
cin >> first;
int second;
cin >> second;

//call the function and print result

cout << max(first, second);

return 0;
}

thanks in advance!

Answer 1

The first part I can see being an issue is that you declare "int" twice. You only need to do that once, so

int result;

If(num...)
result = num1;

should work

Answer 2

In your first method you create two variables result. One above the if else statement (#1) and one inside the if block (#2)

The if block sees only #2 and the else block sees only #1

int max(int num1, int num2) {

int result = 0;
if (num1 >= num2){
//don't write int result
result = num1;
} else result = num2;
return result;

}

Answer 3

I see now that the extra "int" was causing a conflict along with the extra "result".

Thanks