Dear Fellow monks

I am writing a test script for a module (a class actually), and I'm in doubt on how to check that a method is returning a list of values (not a reference, not a scalar: a plain old list)

Now, the only way to check this that comes into my mind is to assign the return value to both a scalar and a list and see if the assigned values are consistent. For example, this scriptlet works as I expect:

use strict ;
use warnings ;

sub test { my @x = qw(test) ; return @x }

my $test = test() ;
my @test = test() ;

print ">>> $test\n" ;
print map "[$_]\n",@test ;
print $test == scalar(@test)? "Yepa!\n" : "Nope!\n" ;

[download]

I am wondering if there is a better way (i.e.: more Perlish or more compact) to do the same job.

Please note that I would like to do this without relying on extra modules, unless they are bundled with Perl 5.6.1; I don't want make test to depend on the presence of an optional module (other than those required by my modules themselves).

Thanks for any advice

--bronto

# Another Perl edition of a song:
# The End, by The Beatles
END {
  $you->take($love) eq $you->made($love) ;
}

In reply to Did I get what I expected (an array)? by bronto

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