Thank you for responding and offering help. here's the code that doesn't work (in all of its ugliness.) and that is followed by what I think is just a cleaner version that DOES work??? I don't know why (could it be the SWITCH or the way I get the arguments to the subroutine???

use Switch;
use DBI;
sub rec_exists;

my (@retRows, @row, @tmp, $retRecs);

while ($line = <>) {
    chomp($line);
    if ($line eq "q") { goto Exit; }
    else {
       $retRecs = rec_exists($line,\@retRows);
    }
    $tmp = @retRows[0];
    @row = @$tmp;
    ($nKey, $fN, $lN, $bN, $hN, $mN) = @row;
    print "$nKey,$fN, $lN, $bN, $hN, $mN\n";
}
Exit:
    exit();


sub rec_exists {
   my ($searchType,$searchParm,$retArrayRef) = split(/,/,@_[0]);
    my $dbh = DBI->connect("DBI:mysql:database=aaaaas;host=localhost",
+"bbbbbb","cccccccccc",{'RaiseError' => 1});
    my ($found, @row, @rows, $nKey, $sth);
    $rowRef;
    @rows = ();
    switch($searchType) {
    case "1" {
        # search using the nKey
        $nKey = $searchParm;
        chomp($nKey); 
        $nKey =~ s/^\s+//; 
        $nKey =~ s/\s+$//;
        $sth = $dbh->prepare("Select  * from sContacts where nKey like
+ '$nKey%'");
        $sth->execute();
        $found = 0;
        while ( $rowRef = $sth->fetchrow_arrayref ){
        $retArrayRef->[$found] = [ @$rowRef ];
        $found++;
        }
               
    }
    }

    $sth->finish;
    $dbh->disconnect;
    return $found;
}
[download]

====================== Now here's the stuff that does work

use Switch;
use DBI;


my (@retRows,$retRecs, $searchKey);

$searchKey = 'marcC';

$retRecs = test_exists($searchKey,\@retRows);

print "returned $retRecs\n";
$tmp = @retRows[0];
print "@$tmp\n";
exit();

sub test_exists {
    my ($searchKey, $retRowsRef) = @_;
    my ($retArrayRef, $found);
    my $dbh = DBI->connect("DBI:mysql:database=aaaaa;host=localhost","
+bbbbbb","ccccccccc",{'RaiseError' => 1});
    my $sth = $dbh->prepare("Select  * from sContacts where nKey like 
+'$searchKey%'");
    $sth->execute();
    $found = 0;
    while ( $retArrayRef = $sth->fetchrow_arrayref ){
    $retRowsRef->[$found] = [ @$retArrayRef ];
    $found++;
    }
    $sth->finish;
    $dbh->disconnect;
    return $found;
}
[download]