title: How to return several items from a Powershell function
body: <p>In a script I have several functions that need to <em>break down an <a href="http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.7/svn.advanced.externals.html">SVN external definition</a></em>. These can either be <code>&lt;url&gt; &lt;path&gt;</code>, <code>-r&lt;rev&gt; &lt;url&gt; &lt;path&gt;</code>, or <code>-r &lt;rev&gt; &lt;url&gt; &lt;path&gt;</code>, and the mechanics I came up with to extract the data is more than just two lines, so I want to put this into a separate function. </p>
  
  <p>But when I do so, I end up with three variables containing the relevant data which are local to the function, and I see no way to get all three of them them to the caller. </p>
  
  <p>In a proper programming language I would return a compound type containing all three values, but I don't see how to do that in Powershell. Of course, I could split this into three separate functions, but then I am back at violating the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_repeat_yourself">DRY rule</a>. </p>
  
  <p>So what can I do here in Powershell? </p>