• Methods to pass the data into the function in C language

• Arrays and functions

• Pointers and functions
There are two methods to pass the data into the function in C language
• Call by value
• Call by reference
Call by value in C

• In call by value method, the value of the actual parameters is copied into the
formal parameters. In other words, we can say that the value of the variable
is used in the function call in the call by value method.
• In call by value method, we can not modify the value of the actual
parameter by the formal parameter.
• In call by value, different memory is allocated for actual and formal
parameters since the value of the actual parameter is copied into the formal
parameter.
• The actual parameter is the argument which is used in the function call
whereas formal parameter is the argument which is used in the function
definition.
Example 1
Update the input value using function(call by value)

#include<stdio.h>
void change(int num) {
printf("Before adding value inside function num=%d \n",num);
num=num+100;
printf("After adding value inside function num=%d \n", num);
}
int main() {
int x=100;
printf("Before function call x=%d \n", x);
change(x);//passing value in function
printf("After function call x=%d \n", x);
return 0;
}
Output
• Before function call x=100
• Before adding value inside function num=100
• After adding value inside function num=200
• After function call x=100
Call by reference in C

• In call by reference, the address of the variable is passed into the

function call as the actual parameter.
• The value of the actual parameters can be modified by changing the
formal parameters since the address of the actual parameters is
passed.
• In call by reference, the memory allocation is similar for both formal
parameters and actual parameters. All the operations in the function
are performed on the value stored at the address of the actual
parameters, and the modified value gets stored at the same address.
Example 2
Update the input value using function (call by reference)

#include<stdio.h>
void change(int *num) {
printf("Before adding value inside function num=%d \n",*num);
(*num) += 100;
printf("After adding value inside function num=%d \n", *num);
}
int main() {
int x=100;
printf("Before function call x=%d \n", x);
change(&x);//passing reference in function
printf("After function call x=%d \n", x);
return 0;
}
Output
• Before function call x=100
• Before adding value inside function num=100
• After adding value inside function num=200
• After function call x=200
Pass arrays to a function in C

• We will see how to pass arrays to a function in C programming with

the help of examples.
Pass Individual Array Elements
• Passing array elements to a function is similar to passing variables to a function.
Example 1: Pass Individual Array Elements

#include <stdio.h>
void display(int age1, int age2) {
printf("%d\n", age1);
printf("%d\n", age2);
}
int main() {
int ageArray[] = {2, 8, 4, 12};
// pass second and third elements to display()
display(ageArray[1], ageArray[2]);
return 0;
}
Output

•8
•4
Example- Program to calculate the sum of array elements by passing to a function

#include <stdio.h>
float calculateSum(float num[]);
int main() {
  float result, num[] = {23.4, 55, 22.6, 3, 40.5, 18};
  // num array is passed to calculateSum()
  result = calculateSum(num); 
  printf("Result = %.2f", result);
Click to add text
  return 0;
}
float calculateSum(float num[]) {
  float sum = 0.0;
  for (int i = 0 ; i < 6; ++i) {
    sum += num[i];
 }
  return sum;
}
• Output
• Result = 162.50

• To pass an entire array to a function, only the name of the array is passed as an argument.
• result = calculateSum(num);
• However, notice the use of [] in the function definition.

• float calculateSum(float num[]) {

• ... ..
•}
• This informs the compiler that you are passing a one-dimensional array to the function.
Example 2: Passing Pointers to Functions
#include <stdio.h>
void addOne(int* ptr) {
(*ptr)++; // adding 1 to *ptr
}
int main()
{
int* p, i = 10;
p = &i;
addOne(p);
printf("%d", *p); // 11
return 0;
}
• Here, the value stored at p, *p, is 10 initially.

• We then passed the pointer p to the addOne() function. The ptr

pointer gets this address in the addOne() function.

• Inside the function, we increased the value stored at ptr by 1 using

(*ptr)++;. Since ptr and p pointers both have the same address, *p
inside main() is also 11.
Exercises
• WAP in C to swap the values of two variables using call by value
• WAP in C to swap the values of two variables using call by reference
• WAP in C to calculate the average of array elements by passing to a
function
Return pointer from function

Example
#include <stdio.h>
int* returnp(int []);
int main() {
int a[]={1,2,3,4,5};
int *p;
p=returnp(a);
printf("%d", *p);
return 0;
}
int* returnp(int a[])
{
a=a+1;
return a;
}