Clear captured output/return value in a Powershell function

Question

Is there a way to clear the return values inside of a function so I can guarantee that the return value is what I intend? Or maybe turn off this behaviour for the function?<

Answer 1

This is one that caused me some trouble with much larger functions.

One can take the first answer "Pipe output to Out-Null" a bit further. We take the code in our function and embed this in a script block, which we then pipe its output to Out-Null.

Now we don't need to trawl through all the code in the function...like so:

function GetArray() 
{
    .{
        # $AutoOutputCapture = "Off" ?
        $myArray = New-Object System.Collections.ArrayList
        $myArray.Add("Hello")
        $myArray.Add("World")

    } | Out-Null

    # Clear return value before returning exactly what I want?
    return $myArray
}

$x = GetArray
$x

Answer 2

Set variable scope to script or global.

function Get-Greeting {
    'Hello Everyone'
    $greeting = 'Hello World'
    'Ladies and Gentlemen'
    $script:greeting = $greeting
}

Get-Greeting
$greeting <== 'Hello World'