Technically, the no-explicit-return version of the function returns 0 for an empty argument list

I am aware of that, but they are relying undefined behaviour to do so[1], and it's a poor value to return.

I infer that the OP did the if(@_) just to prevent divide-by-zero.

That would actually have been a far better outcome!

  1. "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."

In reply to Re^4: resetting a foreach loop! by ikegami
in thread resetting a foreach loop! by lunette

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