Forcing scalar context

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

I'm wondering if there is an easy way to impose scalar context on a return value (wantarray). It's easy to do it the other way round - force list context. This can be done with (function(...)).

The situation I have is with Class::DBI searches, which return an iterator in scalar context and return the list of all matching objects in list context. I want to make an array of iterators, viz:

my @iters = (My::Table1->search(age => 18), My::Table2->search(name =>
+ 'Smith));
[download]

This does the slurp, and does not give me the iterators that I want. I have a workaround, by way of using dummy scalar variables, but I think it is ugly, but works as intended:

my @iters = ((my $tab1 = My::Table1->search(age => 18)), (my $tab2=My:
+:Table2->search(name => 'Smith)))
[download]

Is there some idiomatic, neat way that I have missed?

Update: scalar - doh! Interesting, most of the time I use scalar to count things. I forgot that it was originally designed for another purpose.

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Comment on Forcing scalar context Select or Download Code

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Re: Forcing scalar context by blazar (Canon) on Aug 03, 2005 at 10:05 UTC
scalar! Notice that there's not a corresponding function for list context for there are easier ways to impose it, as you notice yourself.	[reply]
Re: Forcing scalar context by gellyfish (Monsignor) on Aug 03, 2005 at 10:08 UTC
You probably want to try: `my @iters = (scalar My::Table1->search(age => 18), scalar My::Table2-> +search(name => 'Smith));` [download] /J\	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Forcing scalar context by blazar (Canon) on Aug 03, 2005 at 10:44 UTC
Update: scalar - doh! Interesting, most of the time I use scalar to count things. I forgot that it was originally designed for another purpose. Interesting also because IMHO it is rarely needed to count things, e.g. I see people doing all the time things like: `complain if scalar @stuff < 2;` [download] whereas `complain if @stuff < 2;` [download] is just as fine!	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Forcing scalar context by Anonymous Monk on Aug 03, 2005 at 12:16 UTC
It's easy to do it the other way round - force list context. This can be done with `(function(...))`. Putting parenthesis around an expression does NOT create list context: `sub context {wantarray ? "LIST" : "SCALAR"} my $context = (context); print $context, "\n"; __END__ SCALAR` [download] Perhaps you are confused with: `sub context {wantarray ? "LIST" : "SCALAR"} my($context) = context; print $context, "\n"; __END__ LIST` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]