return a whole array

UPDATE: I figured it out. For anyone interested, the function is the actual array data. Placing the function into a variable does the trick. I was trying to do this inside the function and it was not working. Here is how it should be:

$data = new_data(); // here we call the function and place it in a variable
echo $data['some_field']; // here we display one field of the array



How do I get an array out of a function. I seem to be having difficulty.

I want to first call my function, and then use the resulting array like we do $userdata['whatever']

example:
// wrong --------------------------------------------------------------
new_data(); // here we call the function
echo $data['some_field']; // here we display one field of the array
// wrong --------------------------------------------------------------