Re: (tye)Re: Sub cannot return an array?

tye, excellent. Thanks. (You may recognize the example as one I cribbed and modified from you in one of the previous discussions on this topic.) This topic has become a bit of an obsession and I have indeed read a generous sampling of the previous postings.

So far, so good. So how do we put into words the difference in behavior in the two subs in the example? Update: merlyn provides the response to this question in his reply.

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(tye)Re2: Sub cannot return an array? by tye (Sage) on Apr 20, 2001 at 01:16 UTC
"They return different values when called in a scalar context." ? You could make versions that return the first element or a reference to an array or that die when called in a scalar context. But they all return he same list in a list context. Trying to come up with some shorthand that describes both what they return in a list context and what they return in a scalar context without ever mentioning "context" is just a mistake in my book. - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")	[reply]

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(tye)Re2: Sub cannot return an array?
by tye (Sage) on Apr 20, 2001 at 01:16 UTC

"They return different values when called in a scalar context." ?

You could make versions that return the first element or a reference to an array or that die when called in a scalar context. But they all return he same list in a list context.

Trying to come up with some shorthand that describes both what they return in a list context and what they return in a scalar context without ever mentioning "context" is just a mistake in my book.

tye

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