Returning values and displaying values in function conditionally -2

Question

Hello All,

Good day!

This is in accordance to my prev query :

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1386439/returning-values-and-displaying-values-in-function

where a function can be called implicitly or explicitly and accordingly the output should either be print or just return value.

In this query , my ask is the other way as to how to ensure only Print statements are executed and the return value is not displayed when the function is called individually.

FUNCTION TEST1
{

 

$x= "1","2","3"

 

for ($i=0;$i-lt $x.length;$i++)
{
write-host "This is " $x[$i]
}

 

return $x

 

}

So based on above scenario, the ask is when the function is called individually, I just need to display the values as

This is 1

This is 2

This is 3

And in case if called within another function for variable initialization, need to return just the values like and ignore the write host part.

1

2

3

How to suppress the return value to be displayed?

Answer 1

There's no way to do this (at least non that I know of) without passing some indication of what the function should do.

FUNCTION TEST1
{
    "1","2","3"
}

$y = TEST1          # save the values to an array
TEST1               # just send the returned values to the success stream (NOT a best-practice!)
$null = TEST1       # discard the returned values
TEST1 |             # send the returned values to the console host
    ForEach-Object{
        Write-Host "This is $_"
    }

Keep in mind that Write-Host sends the output to the console host, not to your script. It happens immediately, too.