ok, there's gotta be a right way to do this, but I can't seem to see the forest for the trees..

Using the search method of a Class::DBI subclass, assigning to an array gets you the search results, assigning to a string gets you an iterator.. I want the results, not the iterator. I also want to try several slightly different searches and take the results from the first that gets any..

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;

my @results;

# what I thought would work ok..
@results = blah('"or"')
  || blah('"or"')
  || blah('"or"');

# an attempt to fix..
@results = (blah('"(or)"'))
  || (blah('"(or)"'))
  || (blah('"(or)"'));

# an ugly solution that works..
if (@results = blah('"if"')){
} elsif (@results = blah('"if"')) {
} elsif (@results = blah('"if"')) {
}

# not as ugly, but still a hack
for (1){
  last if @results = blah('"for"');
  last if @results = blah('"for"');
  last if @results = blah('"for');
  last;
}


sub blah{
  my ($call) = @_;
  print "$call ";
  print wantarray ? "wants array" : "wants string";
  print "\n";
  return (1,2,3);
}

__END__

]$ perl wantarr.pl
"or" wants string
"(or)" wants string
"if" wants array
"for" wants array
[download]

As you see I have 2 implementations that work ok, but I'm sure there's got to be a better way.. any suggestions?

cheers,

J

_{edited by ybiC: retitle from "how to wantarray..." for searchability}

---

---

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.