Several standard perl functions return different values depending of the context these functions are called.
For example, localtime() returns a string of the form "Wed Nov 15 11:10:36 2006" when called in a scalar context; in a list context it returns a 9-element like this: (10 46 11 15 10 106 3 318 1).
To implement the same behaviour in custom made subroutines, use the function wantarray().
wantarray() returns true if the context of the currently executing subroutine is a list context, returns false in a scalar context and returns undefined in a void context.
Example:
sub example_routine
{
$return_value = "This is a test";
#-- undefined context
return if ( ! defined wantarray );
#-- list context
return split $return_value if ( wantarray );
#-- neither undefined nor list context, return scalar
return $return_value;
}
| 
| 
| 
| 