I have the following subroutine: 
#Returns a table's last row number
#input: table name; rownumber
#return: last row number
#side effects: none

sub lastRowNum {
    my $tableRef = shift ( @_ );
    my $rowName = shift ( @_ );
        
    my $qryAns="";
    $qry = "SELECT $tableRef.$rowName FROM $tableRef ORDER by $tableRe
+f.$rowName DESC LIMIT 1 "; #MySQL certified
    (my $Ok, $qryAns)= dbTools::MySQLqry( $qry, "get last row number f
+rom $tableRef" );
    if( !$Ok ) {
        print STDOUT $qryAns. "Failed to get last $rowName from table 
+". $tableRef. "<br>\n";
        return 0;
    }  elsf {
        my $rowRef = $qryAns->fetchrow_hashref;
        return $$rowRef{'$rowName'};
    }
}

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I manually verified that the MySQL call works, and the dbTools::MySQLqry works perfectly for at least a dozen other subroutines. The problem is that I am getting a null return. I can't tell what the problem is, I am new to perl though. PS: the O'Reilly Perl book mentions an elsif operator, but when I try it, I get a syntax error (using Eclipse as an IDE), and only elsf works.

In reply to Why isn't this subroutine working? by northwestdev

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