25-year programmer showing graying roots. :) Real returned values might be '0', as well. That would fail.
I'm fortunate that, the way I've built this, now all I need to do is to 'flatten' the @item from IFTHENELSE into a one-dimensional array and then iterate. The first non-NIL result found will be returned, and I don't care which elsif or else clause gave it to me. Thanks to you and
both, I see light illuminating repeated subrules.