> So what exactly do you mean by not returning undef to "explicitly" return false.
maybe a little example will make it clearer
DB<1> sub tst {return undef}
DB<2> if ($a=tst()) {print "TRUE"} else {print "FALSE" }
FALSE
DB<3> if (@a=tst()) {print "TRUE"} else {print "FALSE" }
TRUE
DB<4> sub tst { return (); }
DB<5> if ($a=tst()) {print "TRUE"} else {print "FALSE" }
FALSE
DB<6> if (@a=tst()) {print "TRUE"} else {print "FALSE" }
FALSE
line 4 is of course redundant, return; and return (); do exactly the same thing.
> I have found it wise to always return an explicit value,
OK, if you wanna code more "explicitly", you should better define constants for TRUE, FALSE and FAILED.
DB<9> use constant FAILED => ();
DB<10> use constant FALSE => !1;
DB<11> use constant TRUE => 1;
DB<12> sub t_FALSE { return FALSE; }
DB<13> sub t_TRUE { return TRUE; }
DB<14> sub t_FAILED { return FAILED; }
DB<15> if (@a=t_FAILED) {print "TRUE"} else {print "FALSE" }
FALSE
DB<16> if (@a=t_FALSE) {print "TRUE"} else {print "FALSE" }
TRUE
DB<17> if ($a=t_FALSE) {print "TRUE"} else {print "FALSE" }
FALSE
DB<18> if ($a=t_FAILED) {print "TRUE"} else {print "FALSE" }
FALSE
If you wonder about my definition of FALSE, see Truth and Falsehood in perlsyn:
Negation of a true value by "!" or "not" returns a special fals
+e value.
When evaluated as a string it is treated as '', but as a number
+, it is
treated as 0.
UPDATE:
please note: FALSE is defined!
DB<27> p !defined (FAILED)
1
DB<28> p defined (FALSE)
1
i.e. FALSE acts like a defined value like in most other languages.
UPDATE:
On second thought FAILED should better be named EMPTY or NOTHING. Failure is just an interpretation of returning nothing.
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