Is returning a pointer to a static local variable safe?

Question

I\'m working with some code that widely uses the idiom of returning a pointer to a static local variable. eg:

char* const GetString()
{
  static char sTest[         


        

Answer 1

Yes, this is used frequently to return the text portion of some lookup, i.e. to translate some error number into a human friendly string.

Its wise to do this in instances where you'd:

fprintf(stderr, "Error was %s\n", my_string_to_error(error_code));

If my_string_to_error() returned an allocated string, your program would leak given the above (very) common usage of such a function.

char const *foo_error(...)
{
    return "Mary Poppins";
}

... is also OK, some brain dead compilers might want you to cast it though.

Just watch strings in this fashion, don't return a book :)