What you are probably thinking about is $dbh->selectrow_array() which can get a single scalar with a single call. It combines prepare,execute,fetch into one call and returns an array in list context and a scalar in scalar context (it is *not* like a normal array that returns the number of elements of the array in scalar context). But you need to be careful because you must make sure that the query returns only one column and one row.

The example below is ok because it asks for a single column and (assuming that the ids are unique, only a single row):

my $username = $dbh->selectrow_array("
   SELECT username FROM tbl WHERE id = 9
");
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But this next example is bad, it retrieves all columns and while it *may* work, exactly which column is returned is not guaranteed:

my $username = $dbh->selectrow_array("
   SELECT * FROM tbl WHERE id = 9
");
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And this last example is only ok if you want the first row, but not the rest, since it may gather many rows and the selectrow_array will only return the first (note the less than comparison):

my $username = $dbh->selectrow_array("
   SELECT username FROM tbl WHERE id < 9
");
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