in reply to Re^2: What to test in a new module
in thread What to test in a new module

It's safer to explicitly return as otherwise the value of the last expression is returned.

He did say "unless you intentionally are returning undef". I agree with stevieb on that point; however, in my code if I am intentionally returning undef I make that explicit with return(); I never use return; in my code unless I am returning early from a sub which is not expected to return a value. (If the caller insists on doing something with the returned value from such a sub, TNMP.)

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Re^4: What to test in a new module
by swl (Prior) on Jul 08, 2023 at 05:56 UTC

    Thanks for the clarification. Two other points, which you are probably well aware of but some readers might not be:

    return; and return(); are the same, although the brackets do make it more visually distinct and perhaps that's your point.

    return; in list context returns the empty list. This means it is effectively the same as return wantarray ? () : undef; unless it is called in void context. Your use of it when not expecting a return value implies void context, though, so perhaps this point is moot.

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      the brackets do make it more visually distinct and perhaps that's your point.

      That is precisely my point.

      It isn't obvious that return; returns undef, so I don't depend on that. That is, I don't use that construction when that's what I want to do.

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        > It isn't obvious that return; returns undef

        It doesn't. It returns undef in a scalar context, but an empty list in a list context.

        map{substr$_->[0],$_->[1]||0,1}[\*||{},3],[[]],[ref qr-1,-,-1],[{}],[sub{}^*ARGV,3]
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