In response to a P5P posting, I strolled through perlfunc and came up with a representative list of the scalar context return values for things we normally use in a list context. Surprisingly, more things don't return a length than do. Here's the list:
grep | length |
map | length |
@foo | length (efficiently) |
keys/values | length (efficiently) |
split | length, but @_ side-effect |
|
(10, 20, 30) | last element |
@foo[3..5] | last element |
(10, 20, 30)[2, 1] | last element |
splice | last element |
|
caller | package name (first element of list return) |
each | key (first element) |
getpwuid | username (first element) |
getpwnam | user ID (third element of list return) |
glob/<*> | "next" item (repeat until undef) |
gmtime/localtime | printable string (instead of list of components) |
readline/<HANDLE> | "next" item (repeat until undef) |
readpipe/``/qx | one item instead of list of lines |
readdir | "next" item (repeat until undef) |
reverse | string reverse instead of list reverse |
select(4-arg) | $nfound (first element of list) |
sort | undef |
stat | success value |
times | $user (first element) |
unpack | first element |
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