Yes, return returns a value from the subroutine. There are lots of examples of subroutines in the documentation, e.g. the sections "Writing subroutines" in perlintro, "DESCRIPTION" in perlsub (you don't really need the subsections just yet except maybe "Private Variables via my()" and "Pass by Reference"). If you have enough time to read a book, there's the classic "Learning Perl", or perhaps chromatic's "Modern Perl", available for free online.