Trouble returning a string in C

I have the following

char currentDate() {

time_t rawtime; struct tm *set;

char date[12]; time( &rawtime ); set = localtime( &rawtime ); strftime(date,12,"%B %d, %Y", set); return(date); }

and want the function to return a string so that I can use it later in the main function. I'm currently warned that "return makes integer from pointer without a cast" and that "function returns address of local variable". How do I fix that? Thanks!

Cannot use any C++