Answer: How can I write a function's output to a scalar? contributed by ackohno The question is a bit vague, I assume you mean to do something like this: #!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; my ($num1,$num2); $num1=2; $num2=sum($num1,$num1); print "$num2\n"; # Sum: returns the sum of all arguments. sub sum { my $ret; $ret=0; for(@_){$ret+=$_} return $ret; } [download] return tells perl what the subroutine should give back when called, so $num2 is given the final value of $ret in the subroutine sum.

Answer: How can I write a function's output to a scalar? contributed by runrig Do you mean if the function print's to STDOUT? You could maybe use local to temporarily turn STDOUT into a tied IO::Scalar filehandle...haven't tried it myself but worth a try.

Answer: How can I write a function's output to a scalar? contributed by Abigail-II You can do it with a pipe-open, as described in man perlipc. #!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings 'all'; sub my_function { # Does a lot, then writes print "Foobar!"; } my $pid = open my $kid => "-|"; die "Failed to fork: $!\n" unless defined $pid; unless ($pid) { my_function; exit; } my $result; { local $/; $result = <$kid>; close $kid or die "Failed to close pipe: $!\n"; } print "Got: $result\n"; [download] Abigail

Answer: How can I write a function's output to a scalar? contributed by Abstraction As a general rule functions should always return a value not print that value out. Following this rule will avoid problems like this. But if you don't have the option of modifying the function you'll have to do some trickery with STDOUT.

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