Don't change subroutine results based on list or scalar context.
If I were trying to follow that advice, what should I do if a subroutine that returns a list in a list context gets called instead in a scalar or void context? "die"?

Just trying to think this through.

Or did you actually mean "if your subroutine naturally returns a scalar, be sure to return that same scalar in a list context unless otherwise documented" or something convoluted like that?

And the timing for this couldn't be better... I'm just now putting the finishing touches on the Perl Best Practices full-day course that I'm presenting at YAPC::NA next week, and have had my own thoughts on many issues such as these during the writing of the course.

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

In reply to Re: Returning undef: The point I would like Damian to reconsider by merlyn
in thread Returning undef: The point I would like Damian to reconsider by martin

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.