I have this function,

rpargs () {
    local i
    args=()
    for i in "$@"
    do
        test -e "$i" && args+="$(realpath --canonicalize-existing -- "$i")"  || args+="$i"
    done
}

And I want to return args. The only ways I can think of are either to printf '%s\0' and then split it via expansion flags (0@), or to use a global like the code above.