#NAME

Perl::Critic::Policy::Subroutines::ProhibitReturnSort - Behavior of sort is not defined if called in scalar context.

#AFFILIATION

This Policy is part of the core Perl::Critic distribution.

#DESCRIPTION

The behavior of the builtin sort function is not defined if called in scalar context. So if you write a subroutine that directly returns the result of a sort operation, then your code will behave unpredictably if someone calls your subroutine in a scalar context. This Policy emits a violation if the return keyword is directly followed by the sort function. To safely return a sorted list of values from a subroutine, you should assign the sorted values to a temporary variable first. For example:

sub frobulate {

    return sort @list;  # not ok!

    my @sorted_list = sort @list;
    return @sorted_list # OK
}

#KNOWN BUGS

This Policy is not sensitive to the wantarray function. So the following code would generate a false violation:

sub frobulate {

    if (wantarray) {
        return sort @list;
    }
    else{
        return join @list;
    }
}

#CONFIGURATION

This Policy is not configurable except for the standard options.

#CREDITS

This Policy was suggested by Ulrich Wisser and the http://iis.se team.

#AUTHOR

Jeffrey Ryan Thalhammer <jeff@imaginative-software.com>

#COPYRIGHT

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. The full text of this license can be found in the LICENSE file included with this module.

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