On Tue, 30 Nov 2004 23:33:39 +0000, Jonathan Paton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Dave,
>
> Yes, look up references in your books.
>
> E.g.
>
> sub example {
> my @data = qw<Hello World>;
> return [EMAIL PROTECTED];
> }
>
> my $reference = example();
>
> for my $word (@{ $reference }) {
> print "$word\n";
> }
>
> Jonathan Paton
>
You do not *have* to use references at this point, and while I think
mastering their use is
important, it's not on my list of "things a beginner needs" (and
someone who does not know how to even use subs in list contexts is not
ready yet for them)...
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
# flowers -- return a list of
sub flowers
{
# let's suppose you got your flowers out of the database, but to make this
# stand on it's own I will just return the list
return ( 'Dafodil', 'Rose', 'Stench Blossom' );
}
#
# in the mainline code
#
foreach my $flower ( flowers() ) { # flowers() is a subroutine call
print "Have a dozen ${flower}s\n";
}
# note that I used the ${} notation with $flower in that string,
# beacuse I wanted the literal "s" to be attached
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