After reading tye's comment on how he likes it, I started thinking that (1) the more variations I add, the more complex the code gets, and (2) a reusable helper would be great.

So, here is a first draft of a helper function that will package up return values based on 4 different situations. I really like the idea of specifying which return values you want and in what order. It cuts through the whole issue of remembering the long list and arranging it properly. To better support reuse, I made it take a list as individual params or a list ref. If you give it nothing, it returns the whole thing, the way typical list-valued functions do now. If you pass it a hashref, it populates it and returns undef.

Let me know what y'all think, and I'll make a more polished version later. The next question, then, is what should I call the module, or what existing module can it be added to?

—John

(code follows) 

# Multiple Return Value concept code
use strict;
use warnings;
use Carp;

sub _populate_hash
 {
 my $hash= shift;
 my @values= @{shift(@_)};
 my @names= @{shift(@_)};
 croak unless scalar @values == scalar @names;
 while (@values) {
    $hash->{shift @names}= shift @values;
    }
 }
 
sub create_multiple_return
# call this from the function you want to work this way.
 {
 my $retlist= shift;  # first parameter is list ref of all values
 my $namelist= shift;  # second parameter is list of names of those va
+lues
 my $wantnames;
 # remaining arg list is what caller supplied on the host function:
 # either hash ref, list ref, or individual strings, or empty.
 ### (1) call with no args to return entire list.
 return @$retlist  unless @_;
 my $paramtype= ref $_[0];
 ### (2) call with hash ref populates the hash.
 if ($paramtype eq 'HASH') {
    _populate_hash ($_[0], $retlist, $namelist);
    return;
    }
 my %vals;
 _populate_hash (\%vals, $retlist, $namelist);
 ### (3) call with individual strings, make look same as case 4.
 unless ($paramtype) {  # scalar
    $wantnames= \@_;
    }
 else {
    ### (4) list of value names to return
    $wantnames= shift;
    croak  unless ($paramtype eq 'ARRAY');
    carp "too many params"  if @_;
    }
 return map { croak unless exists $vals{$_}; $vals{$_} } @$wantnames;
 }


#############
# example data
{
   my @namelist= qw/year month day hour minute second/;
   my @vallist= qw/2001 July 10 1 2 30/;
   sub get_time
    {
    my $ignored_argument= shift;
    return create_multiple_return (\@vallist, \@namelist, @_);
    }
}

my $Param= 5;  # show how IN parameters are before the stuff this modu
+le deals with.
my @A= get_time($Param);  # (1) get all return values in pre-defined o
+rder.
print "@A\n";
@A= get_time ($Param, qw/second year hour/);  # (3) specify list of de
+sired values, in desired order.
print "@A\n";
my @wantnames= qw/month year/;
@A= get_time ($Param, \@wantnames);  # (4) single ref to list instead 
+of individual params
print "@A\n";
my %hash;
get_time ($Param, \%hash);  # (2) populate hash
foreach (keys %hash) {
   print "$_ => $hash{$_}  ";
   }
print "\n";

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In reply to Multiple Return Values by John M. Dlugosz

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