Further to kcott's reply above, here's an experiment that may make the operation of function call return context more clear:

c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le
"sub S { print ! defined wantarray ? 'void' : wantarray ? 'list' : 'sc
+alar'; }
 ;;
 sub T {
   print 'non-return: ';
   S;
   print 'return: ';
   S;
   }
 ;;
 sub U {
   print 'SCALAR ----';
   my $scalar = T;
   print '';
   print 'LIST ----';
   my @ra = T;
   print '';
   print 'VOID ----';
   T;
   print '';
   }
 ;;
 U;
"
SCALAR ----
non-return:
void
return:
scalar

LIST ----
non-return:
void
return:
list

VOID ----
non-return:
void
return:
void
[download]

See also wantarray and Context in Perl.

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