How does one return an Empty list as a return value

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RE: How does one return an Empty list as a return value by merlyn (Sage) on Oct 23, 2000 at 21:10 UTC
In other words this code: `sub x { (); } @x = x(); use Data::Dumper; warn Dumper([\@x]);` [download] shows that @x is bound to a list with one element. No, it's not. Watch this: `sub routine { return (); } @x = routine(); print 0+@x;` [download] This prints 0, as expected. You are handing to Data::Dumper a list of one item, that one item being a reference to your empty array. Stop indirecting so much! -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker	[reply] [d/l] [select]
RE: How does one return an Empty list as a return value by runrig (Abbot) on Oct 23, 2000 at 20:47 UTC
What are you talking about? `#!/usr/local/bin/perl -l -w use strict; use Data::Dumper; sub x { (); } my @x = x(); my $num = @x; print $num; for (@x) { print; } print Dumper (\@x, $num); #output: 0 $VAR1 = []; $VAR2 = 0;` [download] Update: You gave Dumper() a reference to an array with an element which was a reference to an empty array.	[reply] [d/l]