Question

I have a sub in perl (generated automatically by SWIG) that I want to return multiple values from. However, I seem to be getting variable meta-data instead of the actual values.

sub getDate {
    my $tm = *libswigperlc::MyClass_getDate;
    ($tm.sec, $tm.min, $tm.hour, $tm.day, $tm.month, $tm.year + 1900);
}

The caller is like this…

my ($sec,$min,$hour,$day,$month,$year) = $s->getDate();
print "$year-$month-$day $hour:$min\n";

The $tm.year + 1900 does return the value as wanted. If I add “+ 1” to the other values, they work as wanted too.

But

print $month;

results in

*libswigperlc::MyClass_getDatemonth

instead of

3

What is the best way to return the values to the caller?

I am a novice perl user – I use C++ normally.

Answer 1

tchrist – you were right to question the typeglob line. That line was generated by Swig, and I had no understanding of it.

All I had to do was return the typeglob as is…

sub getDate { 
    *libswigperlc::MyClass_getDate2; 
}

Now the caller can access the members like this…

my $tm = myClass->getDate();
print "Year = $tm->{year}";

At least now I understand it just well enough to know to leave it as it is, or to change it to be the way as per the original idea.