idioms for returning multiple values in shell scripting

Question

Are there any idioms for returning multiple values from a bash function within a script?

http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/assortedtips.html describes how to echo multipl

Answer 1

Shell script functions can only return the exit status of last command executed or the exit status of that function specified explicitly by a return statement.

To return some string one way may be this:

function fun()
{
  echo "a+b"
}

var=`fun` # Invoke the function in a new child shell and capture the results
echo $var # use the stored result

This may reduce your discomfort although it adds the overhead of creation of a new shell and hence would be marginally slower.