index into list returned by subroutine

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I want to be able to index into an array that is returned by a procedure so I try the following:

my $val;
$val = &func[1];
print $val;

sub func {
  qw ( just some list );
}
[download]

I get a compile error on the "$val = &func[1];" line.

Why doesn't this work? I know I can come up with several work arounds but this seems more elegant (except of course it's broken ;) )

Thanks,

Sizzle
Edited 2004-06-09 by Ovid

Comment on index into list returned by subroutine Download Code

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Re: index into list returned by subroutine by diotalevi (Canon) on Jun 09, 2004 at 20:31 UTC
`$val = ( func() )[ 1 ]; $val = ( &func )[1];` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: index into list returned by subroutine by herveus (Prior) on Jun 09, 2004 at 20:33 UTC
Howdy! `my $val = (func())[1];` [download] Put the function call (with parens, and without ampersand) in parens, and index that list... yours, Michael	[reply] [d/l]
Re: index into list returned by subroutine by Fletch (Bishop) on Jun 09, 2004 at 20:31 UTC
It doesn't work because it's wrong. `$val = ( func() ) [ 0 ]` would give you the first element of the list returned. And read `perldoc perlsub` about the differences between `func();`, `&func();`, and `&func;`.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: index into list returned by subroutine by Roy Johnson (Monsignor) on Jun 09, 2004 at 20:42 UTC
Instead of rolling your own code delimiters, use the special <code></code> tag pair. That will keep PerlMonks from treating anything within them as special, like it did your `[angle brackets]` The PerlMonk `tr///` Advocate	[reply] [d/l]