Personally, I think "return undef;" is more clear to the reader than "return;" even though they have an identical effect. Explicitly returning undef tells the reader that hey, dammit, the caller is probably watching for a false/undef return.

Personally, I think "return undef;" is more clear to the reader than "return;" even though they have an identical effect.

Actually, they're not identical ;-)

A raw return will return an empty list in a list context and undef in scalar context. This can make writing code that needs to behave itself in either context easier. See return for more info.

As adrianh said, a blank return actually equates to

return wantarray ? () : undef;
[download]

or probably more correctly

return !defined(wantarray) || wantarray ? () : undef;
[download]

Makeshifts last the longest.

You can always make the error handling behaviour an option. For example, DBI can be made to return errors, or throw an exception, depending on whether you pass the RaiseError option at object creation time.

That way you can keep exception throwing freaks like me happy too :-)

You might also find Best Practices for Exception Handling of interest.

That's a most useful reference; thank you. If I'd have found it first (and, to be frank, if Toronto Perl Mongers list management code hadn't barfed on my original message just 'cos it had sub in it) I might not have needed to ask. Mind you, the discussion here has taken interesting and useful (to me) directions.

--
bowling trophy thieves, die!