Already answered here.

You should do a minimal search in google, because this was the first link returned for "bash return array"

Edit:

In bash, functions don't return values. They can return a status (the same as other programs).

So, if you want to return something, you should use global variables that are updated inside your function.

Discussion

If you have come to the point of wanting to return an array from a function, then you are probably aware that you can only return status codes. Boo! You say. :-)

What can we do with other data in a function that we want to use in another function / context?

1. echo

Assuming stdout is set to the terminal, at least you can see the contents of a variable or something.

2. Output Redirection: > or >>

Not ideal, but possible. :-) There are probably more things you can do, but let's stop here.

Discussion continued ...

Let us say we think option #1 above sounds promising. What usually happens? Something like this ...

function listToString ()
{
    echo "$*"
}

Reference: Your UNIX: The Ultimate Guide, 2nd Edition, p. 387 (last para).

If I call doSomething, it might, say, send a string message to stdout. That output can be captured in two different ways.

1. Backticks `doSomething`
2. This thing: $(doSomthing)

If that is true, then you can save something you send to stdout in another context.

var1=`doSomething`

or

var1=$(doSomething)

In summary ....

Convert a list to a string. Echo the string. Capture the echoed string with command substitution (see above). Use read combined with a here string (<<<) to convert the string into an array. Use array at your leisure.

File: new_users

fsmith
jdoe

Let's say we wanted to add new users with a function we made called addAccounts that loops over username arguments. The order of march would be.

1. Make file
2. Read file
3. Convert list to a string
4. Convert the string to an array.

The code would be something like this

function listToString ()
{
    echo "$*"
}

usersString=$(listToString $(cat new_users))

read -a users <<< $usersString

addAccounts "${users[@]}"

listToString may not work with all lines of input. Test it on your input.

The last line should resolve to:

addAccounts "fsmith" "jdoe"

Many people will not understand the line ...

read -a users <<< $usersString

... because they have never heard of a here string.

This solution does not pass an array from a function, but it does allow you to convert the output of a function to an array. Some are satisfied with converting a list to a string and calling it a day, but if you truly want to deal with an official bash array, the here sting above will do that for you.

This trick won't always work (When you have values with whitespaces, or you want to return values that depend on input values), but it usually does the work:

array_returning_func() {
    echo "cat dog tree"
}

declare -a arr="$(array_returning_func)"
for obj in ${arr[@]}; do
    echo "$obj"
done