sub inner_func {
  if (wantarray) {
    print "ARRAY CONTEXT\n";
  } elsif (defined wantarray) {
    print "SCALAR CONTEXT\n";
  } else {
    print "VOID CONTEXT\n";
  }
}
                         
sub outer_func {
  my @result;
  if (wantarray) { # propagate context
    @result = inner_func();
  } elsif (defined wantarray) {
    $result[0] = inner_func();
  } else {
    inner_func();
  }
  # do some other stuff
  return (wantarray ? (@result) : $result[0]);
}

my @r = outer_func();
my $r = outer_func();
outer_func();