In C programming, the return statement is used to exit a function and return a value to the calling statement. The return statement can be used to return a value of any data type, including integers, floating-point numbers, characters, and even pointers.

The syntax for the return statement in C is as follows:

return expression;

In this syntax, expression is an optional value to be returned by the function. If the function returns no value, you can omit the expression.

Here's an example of a function that returns an integer value using the return statement:

int add(int num1, int num2)
{
    int sum = num1 + num2;
    return sum;
}

In this example, the add function takes two integer parameters num1 and num2, performs an addition operation, and returns the sum of the two numbers using the return statement.

When a function is called, the return statement is used to return a value to the calling statement. For example, consider the following statement that calls the add function:

int result = add(5, 7);

In this statement, the add function is called with the arguments 5 and 7, and the resulting sum is returned using the return statement. The returned value is assigned to the variable result, which can then be used in other parts of the program.