I've become very used to putting nearly all my code in subroutines, based on the principal that "If you use the code more than once, it belongs in a subroutine." However, now I am for the first time reading about how passing & returning large values to/from subroutines can be 'computationally expensive'. The solution suggests that it's better to pass & return references instead. But if a scalar/array/hash is created in the subroutine, I have no choice but to return that item itself, rather than a reference since (assuming the variable is created with 'my') the variable will be destroyed upon exiting the subroutine. Is this correct?

In addition, is it always better to use references whenever possible to reduce CPU use if there's a possibility that the values returned could be large?

---

---

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! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

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:
	&		&
	<		&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.