How does return values (wantarray) interact with Unicode and encodings?

In Perl, the `wantarray` function is essential for determining how a function's return values should be returned, especially when dealing with Unicode and different encodings. Understanding this interaction is crucial for handling multi-language applications or when your data includes special characters.

Here’s a basic example illustrating how `wantarray` can affect the return values of a function when dealing with Unicode strings:

sub example_function { my @array = ("Hello", "नमस्ते", "你好"); # Including Unicode characters if (wantarray) { return @array; # Returns array in list context } else { return join(", ", @array); # Returns concatenated string in scalar context } } # Using the function in list context my @result_list = example_function(); # Using the function in scalar context my $result_scalar = example_function();

Perl wantarray return values Unicode encodings character sets list context scalar context