http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=139549


in reply to list returned from function

You need an extra layer of parens. $elem = (myFunc())[5];

_____________________________________________________
Jeff[japhy]Pinyan: Perl, regex, and perl hacker.
s++=END;++y(;-P)}y js++=;shajsj<++y(p-q)}?print:??;

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Re: Re: list returned from function
by count0 (Friar) on Jan 17, 2002 at 21:28 UTC
    In addition to japhy's excellent answer, I'd like to just point out what this is doing for anyone who might not quite understand why this works as it does.

    (my_func()) forces the output of this function into list context as well as groups it for the [5] we're about to append. Now that [5] takes a slice of the list.

    Here's a simple example
    sub foo { return qw(a b c d) } ( foo() )[1,3]; # Is the same as: ('a', 'b', 'c', 'd')[1,3]; # And effectively the same as @a = foo(); @a[1,3];
    You can read more about slicing in the book Effective Perl Programming (a *must* read =)