Well, that's expected :-) to paraphrase your code: 
sub somesub {
 # ...
 # ...

 # loop until $ecount is false
 # it is actually undocumented what this means
 # fetchrow_array is supposed to be called in list
 # context like so
 #
 #      ($ecount) = $sth->fetchrow_array();
 #
  
 while ( $ecount = $sth->fetchrow_array() ) { 
   # ..
 }
 # $ecount is undef here, probably (see above)

 return $ecount;
}

[download]
the return statement is working perfectly, but your variable s will always be false (certainly not some "count").
"What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?"

In reply to Re^3: Return Value Problem by Joost
in thread Return Value Problem by Ronnie

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