comment on

Well, a more interesting question could be what is the difference between saying 'return ()' or just 'return'.

If you do not provide a return last line, your function will exit with an empty list in list context: '()'. If you provide a value (or an appropriate expression like: print "2") you exit with this value, examples: return 2 -> 2; return ()-> the empty list

So your function is the same as: sub myfunc{}; that does... nothing:
perl -e 'sub myfunc{}; my @var = (1,2,3,4); myfunc(@var); print join(",",@var),"\n"'
perl -e 'sub myfunc{return}; my @var = (1,2,3,4); myfunc(@var); print join(",",@var),"\n"'
perl -e 'sub myfunc{return ()}; my @var = (1,2,3,4); myfunc(@var); print join(",",@var),"\n"'
perl -e 'sub foo{return ()}; my %hash = (1 => 2, 3 => 4); foo(%hash); while (my ($k, $v)=each %hash){print "$k,$v\n"};'
But, such "nothing" functions can still do something:

perl -e 'my @var = (1,2,3,4); sub baz {}; @var = baz(); print "po", jo +in(",",@var),"of!\n";' perl -e 'sub foo{return ()}; my %hash = (1 => 2, 3 => 4); %hash = foo( +); while (my ($k, $v)=each %hash){print "$k,$v\n"};'
[download]

you can use undef $var for the same purpose

In reply to Re: What does return() mean? by pvaldes
in thread What does return() mean? by yistaaa

Title:
Use: <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and: <code> code here </code>
to format your post; it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":

Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.

Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:
<code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>

Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).

Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.


The stupid question is the question not asked
	PerlMonks