The reason this won't work the way you think: (@ary1, $num) = read_data(\@tmpary, $tmpsclr);is documented in the documentation on subs. The return from a sub is always a flat list. Perl shoves everything into @ary1, leaving $num empty.

A reasonable alternative is to return an array ref and a scalar:

($ary1ref, $num) = read_data(...);
@ary1 = @$ary1ref;      # silly, but gets the point across
# ... later ...
sub read_data
{
    # ...
    return \@retary, $count;
}
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HTH