How to return an array in bash without using globals?

Question

I have a function that creates an array and I want to return the array to the caller:

create_array() {
  local my_list=(\"a\", \"b\", \"c\")
  echo \"${my_li         


        

Answer 1

This can also be done by simply passing array variable to the function and assign array values to this var then use this var outside of function. For example.

create_array() {
  local  __resultArgArray=$1
  local my_list=("a" "b" "c")
  eval $__resultArgArray="("${my_list[@]}")"
}

my_algorithm() {
  create_array result
  echo "Total elements in the array: ${#result[@]}"
  for i in "${result[@]}"
  do
    echo $i
  done
}

my_algorithm