Hi Monks, I have a similar problem as I saw it here and using the same sample code my question is, what if some of these elements are repeated, how would be the best way to return these values from the sub routine, would I have to use a two dimensional array instead? 

use strict;
use warnings;

my $info = test();

for my $name (sort keys %$info) {
    
    #print "$name: $info->{$name}\n";
    my $checking = printing(
                             names    => $name,
                             emails   => $info->{$name},
                            );
}


 sub printing {

 my (%args) = @_;
 my $names = $args{names} || '';
 my $emails = $args{emails} || '';

 # need to count how many unique and repeated items and print results
 print "Unique=$names: $emails\n";
 print "Dups  =$names: $emails\n";
 
 }

sub test {
    my (@names_all, @email_all);
    my @names = qw(Joe mary ann pete amy jerry Joe ann John John );
    my @email = qw(joe@test.com mary@test.com ann@nowhere.com
        pete@here.com amy@ok.com jerry@b.com joe@test.com ann@nowhere.
+com John@test.com John@ok.com);
    my %emails;

    @emails{@names_all} = @email_all;
    @emails{@names}     = @email;
    return \%emails;

}

[download]

Thanks for the help!

In reply to Returning values from a sub routine. by Anonymous Monk

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