Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!male!anywhere.EBay.Sun.COM!me
From: me@anywhere.EBay.Sun.COM (Wayne Thompson - IR Workstation Support SE)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: Returning two lists
Message-ID: <6010@male.EBay.Sun.COM>
Date: 3 Apr 91 13:34:07 GMT
Sender: news@male.EBay.Sun.COM
Lines: 35

--- Alain Brossard writes ---
   I want to return two lists from a subroutine (which is
recursive).  (I'm using perl 4.000).

   My code is the following:
sub search {
    local( $dir, $start, @list, @files, $file, @mem_list,
		    @whiteouts, @rtn_list, @rtn_wo ) = @_;
(...)
    return ( @list, @whiteouts );
# also tried
#   return ( (@list), (@whiteouts) );
}

(@list, @whiteouts) = do search( $dir, '' );

	The only thing I get is that on return, @list
always contains the union of the returned lists.

	Any suggestions?

				Alain Brossard
-----------------------------

You could return enough information to decompose the lists...

return (scalar(@list), @list, @whiteouts);

Then recompose them on receipt...

@_ &search(....);
@whiteouts = splice (@_, shift (@_));
@list = @_;

Wayne