Question

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What are valid Perl module return values?

Generally we use 1; at the end of the module. This is to indicate that module returns true and can be imported properly. Now if we return 0 means false, that means module fails in import.

My question is, What if I use (or return) below statements at the end of module

• -1;
• some text;
• or abc;

Does -1 means error, and some text,abc means true

Also what if I don’t use 1; or any statement (as above) at all, what does module return in that case?

Does it return undef?

Answer 1

Any true value indicates success. -1 is a true value.

The return doesn’t have to be at the end of the file; it is the return value of the last executable statement (that is, the last statement that isn’t just a compile-time thing like package, use, no, sub, format).

For example, the requiring a file containing the following:

package foo;
our @x;
sub bar { }

will fail if @foo::x is empty and otherwise succeed.

If there indeed are no executable statements, the return value is taken to be undef (false).