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> ends with a line of code looking like ''<A NAME=...... HREF=......>...</A>'';}

Perl subroutines can implicitly return the last value/statement without explicit return statement.

see perlsub

If no return is found and if the last statement is an expression, its value is returned. If the last statement is a loop control structure like a foreach or a while , the returned value is unspecified. The empty sub returns the empty list.

This is done to facilitate functional programming.

So the writing is done where the function is called.