defined is not meant to be used on arrays and must not be used on arrays in forward-compatible code. It doesn't do anything meaningful.

There's some uncertainty as to what you are trying to do.

• Are you trying to return a list (0 or more items)? If so, you probably want to count the number of elements in the array.

  print("Number of elements: ", scalar(@rtnVal), "\n");
  [download]

  That will reveal that you do have a bug.
  my @rtnVal = undef;
  should be
  my @rtnVal = ();
  or just
  my @rtnVal = undef;

• Are you trying to return a scalar (1 item or undefined)? If so, you shouldn't be using an array. In fact, your code actually behaves as if @rtnVal is a scalar. If you change it to a scalar $rtnVal, you should get the results you were expecting.

Update: Added second bullet.

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