my subroutine does NOT return a number.
That is not true, according to the documentation for return, and as others in this thread have already pointed out:
(Note that in the absence of an explicit "return", a subroutine, eval, or do FILE will automatically return the value of the last expression evaluated.)
This is why moritz correctly pointed out that your sub is indeed returning a value, and it even might be numeric (0).

Consider the following contrived example: 

#!/usr/bin/env perl
use warnings;
use strict;

my $result;

$result = foo();
print "result=$result\n";
$result = bar();
print "result=$result\n";

sub foo {print "foo: "}
sub bar {print "bar: "; chdir '/nodir'}

[download]

This prints: 

foo: result=1
bar: result=0

[download]

sub "foo" returns the result of the successful print command, and sub "bar" returns the result of the unsuccessful chdir command.

In reply to Re^3: &process or die by toolic
in thread &process or die by steph_bow

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