I'm almost positive that I didn't write it exactly like that because I almost never write not as an exclamation mark. Anyhow, you could omit that $found value because your last skips right out of the while. The other use you use for $found is irritating. I much prefer setting the return value explicitly and letting that take the place of $found. I copied my code, fixed it up and commented the changes.

 sub search {
     my %args = @_;
     # Turned into a scalar. An array reference will be
     # stored here if the value being searched for was
     # found.
     my $return_record;
 
     local *PARTS_DB;
     open PARTS_DB, $args{filename} or die "Cannot open file $args{fil
+ename}: $!";
     while (my $record = <PARTS_DB>) {
         chomp $record;
         my @record = split /\|/, $record;
         next unless $record[PART] eq $args{part}
                 and $record[REV] eq $args{rev};
         
         # Change this from assigning to @return_record
         # so now it's an array reference. Also add a last;
         # call;
         $return_record = \ @record;
         last;
     }
     close PARTS_DB or die "Can't close PARTS_DB $args{filename}: $!";

     # This returns whatever was found which may be nothing
     return $return_record;
 }

[download]

Seeking Green geeks in Minnesota

In reply to Re^3: using join with a print ref statement by diotalevi
in thread using join with a print ref statement by Bismark

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.