How do I return a string (or large number, or negative number) from a function? "return" only lets me give a number from 0 to 255.

Functions in Bash (as well as all the other Bourne-family shells) work like commands: that is, they only "return" an exit status, which is an integer from 0 to 255 inclusive. This is intended to be used only for signaling errors, not for returning the results of computations, or other data.

If you need to send back arbitrary data from a function to its caller, there are several different methods by which this can be achieved.

Capturing standard output

You may have your function write the data to stdout, and then have the caller capture stdout.

   1 foo() {
   2    echo "this is my data"
   3 }
   4 
   5 x=$(foo)
   6 printf 'foo returned "%s"\n' "$x"

One drawback of this method is that the function is executed in a SubShell, which means that any variable assignments, etc. performed in the function will not take effect in the caller's environment (and incurs a speed penalty as well, due to a fork()). This may or may not be a problem, depending on the needs of your program and your function. Another drawback is that everything printed by the function foo is captured and put into the variable instead. This leads to problems if foo also writes things that are not intended to be a returned value. To isolate user prompts and/or error messages from "returned" data, redirect them to stderr which will not be captured by the caller.

   1 foo() {
   2    echo "running foo()..."  >&2        # send user prompts and error messages to stderr
   3    echo "this is my data"              # variable will be assigned this value below
   4 }
   5 
   6 x=$(foo)                               # prints:  running foo()...
   7 printf 'foo returned "%s"\n' "$x"      # prints:  foo returned "this is my data"

Global variables

You may assign data to global variables, and then refer to those variables in the caller.

   1 foo() {
   2    return="this is my data"
   3 }
   4 
   5 foo
   6 printf 'foo returned "%s"\n' "$return"

The advantage of this method (compared to capturing stdout) is that your function is not executed in a SubShell, which means the function call is much faster. It also means side effects (like other variable assignments and FileDescriptor changes) will affect the rest of the script.

The drawback of this method is that if the function is executed in a subshell, then the assignment to a global variable inside the function will not be seen by the caller. This means you would not be able to use the function in a pipeline, for example.

Writing to a file

Your function may write its data to a file, from which the caller can read it.

   1 foo() {
   2    echo "this is my data" > "$1"
   3 }
   4 
   5 # This is NOT solid code for handling temp files!
   6 tmpfile=$(mktemp)   # GNU/Linux
   7 foo "$tmpfile"
   8 printf 'foo returned "%s"\n' "$(<"$tmpfile")"
   9 rm "$tmpfile"
  10 # If this were a real program, there would have been error checking, and a trap.

The drawbacks of this method should be obvious: you need to manage a temporary file, which is always inconvenient; there must be a writable directory somewhere, and sufficient space to hold the data therein; etc. On the positive side, it will work regardless of whether your function is executed in a SubShell.

For more information about handling temporary files within a shell script, see FAQ 62. For traps, see SignalTrap.

Dynamically scoped variables

Instead of using global variables, you can use variables whose scope is restricted to the caller and the called function.

   1 rand() {
   2    local max=$((32768 / $1 * $1))
   3    while (( (r=$RANDOM) >= max )); do :; done
   4    r=$(( r % $1 ))
   5 }
   6 
   7 foo() {
   8    local r
   9    rand 6
  10    echo "You rolled $((r+1))!"
  11 }
  12 
  13 foo
  14 # Here at the global scope, 'r' is not visible.

This has the same advantages and disadvantages as using global variables, plus the additional advantage that the global variable namespace isn't "polluted" by the function return variable.

However, this technique doesn't work with recursive functions.

   1 # This example won't work.
   2 fact() {
   3    local r      # to hold the return value of things we call
   4    if (($1 == 1)); then
   5       r=1       # to send data back to the caller
   6    else
   7       fact $(($1 - 1))       # call ourself recursively
   8       r=$((r * $1))          # send data back to the caller
   9    fi
  10 }

There is a variable name collision -- the example above tries to use r for two conflicting purposes at the same time. For recursive functions, stick with the global variable technique.

   1 # This example works.  It's not the best way to compute a factorial, but
   2 # it's a simple example of a recursive function.
   3 fact() {
   4    if (($1 <= 1)); then
   5       r=1
   6    else
   7       fact "$(($1 - 1))"
   8       ((r *= $1))
   9    fi
  10 }
  11 
  12 fact 11
  13 echo "$r"

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