How to return one and only one value from a PowerShell function?

PowerShell does pipes awkwardkly. To work around the return value problem and save the pipeline for real data, pass the function a value by reference, that is, an array. The array can be loaded with the value you wish to return. Here's a simple example:

# tp.ps1
# test passed parameters
# show that arrays are passed by reference, and can be used to provide
# return values outside the pipeline
function doprint
{
process { write-output "value now: $psitem" }
}

function recurse($thing, $rtx)
{
$thing++
if($thing -lt 20) {
if($thing -eq 15) { $rtx[0] = $thing }
write-output $thing | doprint
recurse $thing $rtx
}
}

j=0
$rtv=@(4)
recurse $j $rtv
write-output $rtv[0]

I was surprised how powershell `return` works. Because I never had to write a function which returns a value. It returns not the variable itself, but all output stream of the function. To not pass output, you would have to use [Out-Null](

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). So your example would be:

```
function Calculate
{
. {
echo "Calculate"
$result = 11
return
} | Out-Null

return $result
}

$result = Calculate
```

And result is:
```
11
```

Credits to

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