[Chicago-talk] return values

Randal L. Schwartz merlyn at stonehenge.com
Tue Dec 30 14:13:21 CST 2003


>>>>> "Andy" == Andy Lester <andy at petdance.com> writes:

Andy> Make sure you do NOT do

Andy> my $x = stuff();  # $x now == 2

Andy> because $x is in scalar context, and a list assigned to a scalar returns
Andy> the length of the list.

No, you can't have a "list assigned to a scalar".  The context gets
propogated.  For this example, you'll get "2", but only because the
last expression evaluated is "2" in that list. :)  You'd get "b" in this case:

  sub stuff {
    return ("a", "b");
  }

And if you called it as:

        my ($x) = stuff();

you'd get "a" instead!  Wild, huh.

-- 
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