note TheDamian I agree with you. I would certainly never recommend that people write: <code> if ($result = thatroutine()) { return $result; } </code> But, as your <tt>while</tt>-based variant shows, non-constant assignments in a conditional are always fine if you're <em>declaring</em> the lvalue variable at that point: <code> if (my $result = thatroutine()) { return $result; } </code> In such cases, the <tt>=</tt> <em>must</em> be intentional, since <tt>==</tt> on a newly-created variable doesn't make any sense. <p> As for your alternative suggestion, I don't feel it's a clear or as clean as using an <tt>if</tt>, because the use of a <tt>while</tt> implies looping behaviour, which the <tt>return</tt> undermines in a not-entirely-obvious way. That could be especially misleading to subsequent readers of the code if the number of statements in the <tt>while</tt> block later increases, pushing the <tt>return</tt> away from the loop keyword it's subverting. 436920 437047