Returning a two-dimensional array from a switch case in C++

Question

I'm writing a game in cocos2dx, and i'm trying to refactor a method thats gets called a few times. I want to return a two dimensional array from an enum of vehicletype

How can i get something like the following to work??

int Vehicle::getVehicle(VehicleTypes vehicletypes)
{

int vehicle[8][8] = {0};

switch (vehicleType) {
    case Car:
            // --- ARRAY 1 ------

            vehicle = {
                { 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0 },
                { 0,0,1,2,5,8,0,0 },
                { 0,0,5,3,4,5,0,0 },
                { 0,0,0,6,0,7,0,0 },
                { 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0 },
                { 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0 },
                { 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0 },
                { 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0 },
            };
            break;
    case Bus:
        {
            // --- ARRAY 2 ------

            Vehicle = {
                { 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0 },
                { 0,0,0,0,1,2,0,0 },
                { 0,0,3,4,5,0,0,0 },
                { 0,0,6,8,7,0,0,0 },
                { 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0 },
                { 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0 },
                { 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0 },
                { 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0 },
            };
            break;
        }
    default:
        break;
    }

return vehicle;
}

Thanks

Answer 1

typedef const int (*matrix_ptr)[8];

Demo: http://ideone.com/i1Tc2

Answer 2

Why are you using arrays? You should use one of the STL containers such as a vector. Either way, a 2D int array in C++ is basically a pointer to a pointer of int's. Either the caller of the function needs to supply an allocated 2D array on the heap or stack and pass it as a in/out argument or have the "callee" (this function) allocate a 2D array on the heap and pass it back to the caller. If it's the latter case, then the caller is now responsible for deallocating the memory.