($name, $p) = extract_name($response, $p) ; .... sub extract_name { my ($response, $p) = @_ ; my $extracted ... .... return ($extracted, $p) ; } ;

##</code><code>##

sub extract_name { my ($response, $p) = @_ ; 
my $extracted ... .... $_[1] = $p ; 
# $_[1] is implicitly a reference to the 2nd +actual argument return $extracted ;
 } ;