The return value of a a list assignment is not what you expected in scalar context.

Note that you're actually calling &$rhoo twice in two different contexts: 

if (&$rhoo)

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calls &$rhoo in scalar context, which in turn forces the returning statement ($a,$b)=hoo() in scalar context, and assigning to a list in scalar context returns the number of elements assigned - in this case, 1.

the second call (in the print argument list) is in list context, and in that case ($a,$b)=hoo() returns the actual list.

Your code is pretty complicated: you'd see the same behaviour with: 

print "return hoo ", hoo(), "\n" if hoo();

sub hoo {
  ($a,$b) = 0;
}

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"What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?"

In reply to Re: Returning array by Joost
in thread Returning array by adjohan

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