Why does this sometimes print nonsense or crash? Go!

Here's a debugging challenge that demonstrates one of C's most common pitfalls: returning pointers to local variables. This code looks innocent enough: we return an integer and print it but the behavior is undefined and can lead to crashes, garbage output, or sometimes even appear to work correctly. Understanding why this fails is fundamental to writing safe C code. Can you identify the issue and suggest a fix? Share your analysis in the comments! Subscribe to Google for Developers → https://goo.gle/developers