The approach GrandFather listed is a good one. One thing to keep in mind if you find that you like this approach is that a return inside the eval block returns from that block - not from the outer function.

sub example {
    my $number = shift;
    eval {
        if (2 / $number > 3) {
        return 1;
    }
    };
    print "Still here\n";
  
}
[download]

To capture the value returned, you can do this:

   my $value = eval {
       # Do stuff;
       return 4;
   };
[download]

And if you would like to explore a bit further you could look into some CPAN modules that provide exception objects, which help you to communicate the cause of the failure to listeners up the chain.

I'm fond of Exception::Class, and you might find Exception::Class::TryCatch useful.

And a discussion from perlmonks about Exception::Class - Exception::Class - how to use?