How to return several items from a Powershell function

I agree with @Christian, and I add another solution.

First you can return using an array explicitly or implicitly:

1. explicitly

   function ExplicitArray ()
   {
     $myArray = @()
   
     $myArray += 12
     $myArray += "Blue"
   
     return ,$myArray
   }
   
   Clear-Host
   $a = ExplicitArray
   Write-Host "values from ExplicitArray are $($a[0]) and $($a[1])"
   

2. implicitly

   function ImplicitArray ()
   {
     Write-Output 12
   
     Write-Output "Blue"
     return "green"
   }
   
   $b = ImplicitArray
   Write-Host "values from ImplicitArray are $($b[0]), $($b[1]) and $($b[2])"
   

Second you can return a custom object:

1. Short form

   function ReturnObject ()
   {
     $value = "" | Select-Object -Property number,color
     $value.Number = 12
     $value.color = "blue"
     return $value
   }
   $c = ReturnObject
   Write-Host "values from ReturnObject are $($c.number) and $($c.color)"
   

2. School form

   function SchoolReturnObject ()
   {
     $value = New-Object PsObject -Property @{color="blue" ; number="12"}
     Add-Member -InputObject $value –MemberType NoteProperty –Name "Verb" –value "eat"
     return $value
   }
   $d = SchoolReturnObject
   Write-Host "values from SchoolReturnObject are $($d.number), $($d.color) and $($d.Verb)"
   

Third using argument by reference:

function addition ([int]$x, [int]$y, [ref]$R)
{
 $Res = $x + $y
 $R.value = $Res
}

$O1 = 1
$O2 = 2
$O3 = 0
addition $O1 $O2 ([ref]$O3)
Write-Host "values from addition $o1 and $o2 is $o3"

Maybe I am misunderstanding the question but isn't this just as simple as returning a list of variables, and the caller simply assigns each to a variable. That is

> function test () {return @('a','c'),'b'}
> $a,$b = test

$a will be an array, and $b the letter 'b'

> $a 
a
c
> $b
b

I was using a tuple to return multiple values but it had unexpected results vp_field1,vp_field2=abc()

so I refactored the code to:

function abc()
{
   $value = New-Object PsObject -Property @{ 
        vp_field1 = $field1;
        vp_field2 = $field2;
        }

    return $value;
}

$value=abc();

print("$value.vp_field1 $value.vp_field2")

You can cast a hashtable to a PSCustomObject and return that.

[PSCustomObject]@{First = 1; Second = 2; Third = 3}

I was looking how to call function/ class method and found this.

@eythort answered about functions, here is for method, where you need to define type.

If I understand question, issue is how to call

$a,$b = $C.test()

or

$a,$b = [C]::test()

I wrote this as

class C {
  static [System.Array] test () {
    return @('a','c'),'b'
  }
}

$a will be an array, and $b the letter 'b'

> $a
a
c
> $b
b