First, a little background info. There are two major contexts we are concerned with here: scalar and list (the others are boolean, void and interpolative -- but that's another topic). There is no hash context. wantarray will tell you if the context is scalar or list, but not if you want a hash.

That said, you can only tell if you want one value or a list of values. For example:
$var = mysub();
@var = mysub();
%var = mysub();

sub mysub {
    print "You want a scalar\n" unless wantarray;
    print "You either want a hash or an array\n" if wantarray;
}

[download]
One quick way I can think of to get around this is by passing references. For example,
my($var,@var,%var);

&mysub(\$var);
&mysub(\@var);
&mysub(\%var);

sub mysub {
    my($ref) = shift;
    print "You want a scalar\n" if ref($ref) eq 'SCALAR';
    print "You want an array\n" if ref($ref) eq 'ARRAY';
    print "You want a hash\n"   if ref($ref) eq 'HASH';
}

[download]
Hope that helps,
Shendal

In reply to RE: How do you test for return type($,@,%)? by Shendal
in thread How do you test for return type($,@,%)? by draco_iii

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.