Returning multiple variables in c/cpp

Question

Is it possible to return multiple variables in c/cpp without using pointer?
And if it is, how?

Answer 1

Yes you can do that by using tuple. Below is an implementation of it.

#include <iostream>
#include <tuple>
using namespace std;

tuple<int, int> swap(int num1, int num2) {
int temp = num1;
num1 = num2;
num2 = temp;

return make_tuple(num1, num2);
}

int main() {
int num1 = 10, num2 = 20;

cout << "num1: " << num1 << ", num2: " << num2 << endl;

tie(num1, num2) = swap(num1, num2);
cout << "num1: " << num1 << ", num2: " << num2 << endl;

return 0;
}

Edit: You can also return multiple values of different data types from a function using tuple.

Answer 2

And now with C++17's structured bindings, you can declare multiple variables together and read values from functions returning tuples or pairs on the fly.

Eg :

auto parse_date(string s)
{
auto p1 = s.find('/'), p2 = s.find('/',p1+1);
return make_tuple(stoi(s.substr(0,p1)), stoi(s.substr(p1,p2-p1)), stoi(s.substr(p2)));
}
int main()
{
auto [day,month,year] = parse_date("19/02/2019");
}