Return Multidimensional Array From Function

Question

I encountered some issue in converting my existing vbs script to PowerShell script. I have illustrate here with some dummy codes instead of my original code. In example 1,

Answer 1

when you declare single line array like

$array1 = "Apple","Banana"

when you call :

$array1[0][1]

this will happen :

this code

function testArray {
    $array1 = @()
    $array1 += ,@("Apple","Banana")

    return $array1
}
$array2 = testArray
Write-Host $array2[0][1]

exact the same of this:

$array1 = "Apple","Banana"

but when you declare 2 row of array like :

function testArray {
    $array1 = @()
    $array1 += ,@("Apple","Banana")
    $array1 += ,@("Orange","Pineapple")

    return $array1
}
$array2 = testArray
Write-Host $array2[0][0]

this will happen :

if you need apple in your first code just call array[0] not array[0][0]. array[0][0] return char for you.

sorry for my bad english i hope you understand

Answer 2

PowerShell unrolls arrays returned from a function. Prepend the returned array with the comma operator (,, unary array construction operator) to wrap it in another array, which is unrolled on return, leaving the nested array intact.

function testArray {
    $array1 = @()
    $array1 += ,@("Apple","Banana")

    return ,$array1
}