You can easily return multiple values from a subroutine - it must be some weird other language you're thinking about, like C or Pascal, that can only return one value and not a list from a subroutine.

You can also pass in lists to a subroutine, but Perl automatically flattens all lists into one big list, and you lose the information which element came from one list:

use strict;

sub foo {
  my (@args) = @_;
  print "$_\n" for @args;
};

my @a = qw(a1 a2 a3);
my @b = qw(b1 b2 b3 b4 b5);

foo(1,2,3,4,5,@a,@b);
[download]

If you want to keep the distinction between the arrays, it is customary to pass the arrays via reference :

use strict;

sub foo {
  my ($val1,$val2,$arr_ref1,$arr_ref2) = @_;
  print "$_\n" for ($val1,$val2,$arr_ref1,$arr_ref2);
};

my @a = qw(a1 a2 a3);
my @b = qw(b1 b2 b3 b4 b5);

foo(1,2,\@a,\@b);
[download]

To get at the values in @a and @b, you'll need to dereference $arr_ref1 and $arr_ref2:

use strict;

sub foo {
  my ($val1,$val2,$arr_ref1,$arr_ref2) = @_;
  print "$_\n" for ($val1,$val2);
  for my $array ($arr_ref1,$arr_ref2) {
    for my $element (@$array) {
      print "array: $element\n";
    };
  };
};

my @a = qw(a1 a2 a3);
my @b = qw(b1 b2 b3 b4 b5);

foo(1,2,\@a,\@b);
[download]

See also tyes References quick reference for a much more and better explanation.

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