你在编译程序时启用了优化器吗?foo()函数非常简单，可能已经在结果代码中被内联或替换。

但是我同意Mark B的观点，结果行为是不确定的。

给所有的答案补充一点:

如果你这样做:

#include<stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int * foo(){
    int a = 5;
    return &a;
}
void boo(){
    int a = 7;

}
int main(){
    int * p = foo();
    boo();
    printf("%d\n",*p);
}

输出可能是:7

这是因为从foo()返回后，堆栈被释放，然后被boo()重用。 如果你分解可执行文件，你会清楚地看到它。

您实际上调用了未定义的行为。

返回临时作品的地址，但由于临时作品在函数的末尾被销毁，访问它们的结果将是未定义的。

因此，您没有修改a，而是修改了a曾经所在的内存位置。这种差异与崩溃和不崩溃之间的差异非常相似。

这是典型的未定义行为，两天前在这里讨论过——搜索一下网站。简而言之，您是幸运的，但是任何事情都可能发生，并且您的代码正在对内存进行无效的访问。

注意所有警告。不要只解决错误。 GCC显示此警告

警告:返回局部变量'a'的地址

这就是c++的强大之处。你应该关心记忆。有了-Werror标志，这个警告就变成了一个错误，现在您必须调试它。

It's 'Dirty' way of using memory addresses. When you return an address (pointer) you don't know whether it belongs to local scope of a function. It's just an address. Now that you invoked the 'foo' function, that address (memory location) of 'a' was already allocated there in the (safely, for now at least) addressable memory of your application (process). After the 'foo' function returned, the address of 'a' can be considered 'dirty' but it's there, not cleaned up, nor disturbed/modified by expressions in other part of program (in this specific case at least). A C/C++ compiler doesn't stop you from such 'dirty' access (might warn you though, if you care). You can safely use (update) any memory location that is in the data segment of your program instance (process) unless you protect the address by some means.