sub somesub {
 # ...
 # ...

 # loop until $ecount is false
 # it is actually undocumented what this means
 # fetchrow_array is supposed to be called in list
 # context like so
 #
 #      ($ecount) = $sth->fetchrow_array();
 #
  
 while ( $ecount = $sth->fetchrow_array() ) { 
   # ..
 }
 # $ecount is undef here, probably (see above)

 return $ecount;
}