"The most effective debugging tool is still careful thought, coupled with judiciously placed print statements."
Brian Kernighan, "Unix for Beginners" (1979)

Still true in 2015.

sub tryagain5 {
    my ($messagetouser) = @_;
    my $ans = callandresponse($messagetouser);
    my $count=1;

    # DEBUG
    print "ans is <<$ans>>\n";
    print "count is <<$count>>\n";

    while ($count < 5 and $ans =~ /^\s*\n/) {
        $count++;
        $ans = callandresponse ($messagetouser);
    }
    if ($ans =~ /^\s*\n/) {
        return 0;
    }
    else {
        return $ans;
    }
}

[download]

You should learn how to indent your programs properly: use perltidy. Bad indentation (like yours) is a serious hindrance to careful thought.

In reply to Re: Subroutine Loop by Anonymous Monk
in thread Subroutine Loop by tryingnottofailmytes

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.