my $sql =
"
SELECT
incident.id AS i_id, incident.severity, incident.summary,
action.id AS a_id, action.incident_id, action.description, action.notes
FROM
incident,
action
WHERE
incident.id = action.incident_id
AND action.due_date > $date (a specified date)
AND action.due_date < current_date()
ORDER BY sort_date ASC
"

$sth->prepare($sql);
$sth->execute();

while (my $href =$sth->fetchrow_hashref()) {
my $details={};
$details->{'Incident ID'} = $$href{'i_id'};
$details->{'Action ID'} = $$href{'a_id'};
$details->{'Severity'} = $$href{'severity'};
$details->{'Summary'} = $$href{'summary'};
and so on...

push(my @results, $details);
}
return @results

##</code><code>##

my @results = "first subroutine"

foreach my $result (@results) {
my $output = $result->{'Incident ID'}.", ";
$output .= $result->{'Action ID'}.", ";
$output .= $result->{'Severity'}.", ";
$output .= $result->{'Summary'}.", ";
and so on...
$counter++
}
return $output;