The subroutine as your have coded it doesn't actually have a meaningful return value. The problem is that the "system" command does not capure the output text of the command. Perl has a different operator for that: 
sub ctrl {
   return qx/xmmsctrl print %T/;
}

my $ctrl = ctrl();

[download]
The qx operation could also be written using backticks: 
sub ctrl {
   return `xmmsctrl print %T`;
}

[download]
--Dave
Opinions my own; statements of fact may be in error.

In reply to Re: pass subroutine value to scalar by dpuu
in thread pass subroutine value to scalar by sub_chick

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