PowerShell converts values returned from function. How to avoid this?

Question

I am trying to return List< T> from PowerShell function, but get one of:

1. null - for empty list
2. System.Int32 - for list with one element
3. Sy

Answer 1

Yeah, powershell unrolls all collections. One solution is to return a collection containing the real collection, using the unary comma:

function CreateClrList
{
    $list = New-Object "System.Collections.Generic.List``1[System.Int32]"
    $list.Add(3)
    ,$list
}