Issue

I have made the following function to calculate the maximum value of an array:

MaxArray(){
aux ="$1"
for n in "$@"
do
    [ "$n" -gt "$aux" ] && aux="$n"
done
return $aux
}

I tried changing return to echo "$aux" to see if it calculated the value correctly and it worked. With an array with the following values: (1, 10, 152, 0, 3), I tried return and called the function like this:

value=$( MaxArray ${array[@]} )
echo "value is $value"

But $value is empty after calling the function. How can I assign the return of the function to $value correctly?

Solution

In the shell, passing values is done through the output, not the return code:

#!/bin/bash

MaxArray() {
    local n aux="$1"
    for n in "$@"
    do
        (( n > aux )) && aux=$n
    done
    echo "$aux"
}

value=$( MaxArray "${array[@]}" )

Answered By - Fravadona

Answer Checked By - Dawn Plyler (WPSolving Volunteer)

Tuesday, June 7, 2022

[SOLVED] How do I assign the result of a function to a variable?

Issue

Solution