#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

sub return_value {
        return ""  unless wantarray;
        return ("this is a value", "xxx", "yyy", "zzz") ;
};

my $stuff;
for ( return_value() ) {
    chomp;
    s/foo//g;
    tr/x/y/;
    $stuff = $_;
}
print "\$stuff >$stuff<\n";

$stuff = return_value();
for ($stuff) {
    chomp;
    s/foo//g;
    tr/x/y/;
}
print "\$stuff >$stuff<\n";

# the output
__DATA__
$stuff >zzz<
$stuff ><