use Modern::Perl;

sub givelist {
    my @rtn = ('a', 'b', 'c');
    return @rtn;
}

#say givelist()[1];
my @list = givelist();
say $list[1];

[download]

I have a sub that returns a list. Frequently (but not always), I want just one element of the list. I have a variable containing the index of the element I want. When I first wrote the code, I wrote it as I wrote line 8, now commented out, in the SSCCE above. This fails at compile time:

X:\Data\Perl>perl ListTest.pl
syntax error at ListTest.pl line 8, near ")["
Execution of ListTest.pl aborted due to compilation errors.

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Splice didn't help, either. Changing the line to say splice(givelist(), 1, 1); resulted in a warning as well as an error:

X:\Data\Perl>perl ListTest.pl
splice on reference is experimental at ListTest.pl line 8.
Not an ARRAY reference at ListTest.pl line 8.

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It's no big deal to write two lines and use an array for this single purpose, but it feels wrong. I expected Perl's DWIMmishness to be able to handle line 8 as I originally wrote it. Is there a way to get the single element I sometimes want without the business of an additional array?

Regards,

John Davies

Update: The suggested action works perfectly. Many thanks to all. Now I'll try to understand the ideas behind it!

In reply to [Solved] Pick a single item from a sub's return list by davies

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