http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=979839


in reply to passing variables to a subroutine

my $proph=@_;

Using an array (here @_) in scalar context returns the number of elements in the array , and is not what you want.

Typical solutions are (use only one of them)

my $proph = shift;   # defaults to @_
my ($proph) = @_;    # list context instead
my $proph = $_[0];   # be explicit about wanting the first element

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See perlintro and perlsub for more details.

Perl 6 - the future is here, just unevenly distributed

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Re^2: passing variables to a subroutine
by AWallBuilder (Beadle) on Jul 04, 2012 at 09:11 UTC
    thanks for the explanation, my $proph = $_[0]; # be explicit about wanting the first element helps, I now have some other errors to try and fix
[reply]

      Just to pound the point completely into the ground: 

      >perl -wMstrict -le
"F('success');
 ;;
 sub F {
   my   $scalar_context = @_;
   my ( $list_context ) = @_;
   ;;
   print qq{in scalar context: '$scalar_context'};
   print qq{in list context: '$list_context'};
   }
"
in scalar context: '1'
in list context: 'success'

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