Re: [perl #58236] [TODO][PDD19] make decision on open issue on .return directive in pdd19

[Allison Randal <allison@perl.org>]

Klaas-Jan Stol (via RT) wrote:
> The parentheses surrounding the arguments are mandatory. Besides making
> sequence break more conspicuous, this is necessary to distinguish this
> syntax from other uses of the C<.return> directive that will be probably
> deprecated.
>
>
> The open issue of the 'probably deprecation' should be decided on; what
> return directive is meant here that supposedly would be deprecated?
> Will it? (any need?)
Yes, it will be deprecated, or at least renamed. The C<.return> 
directive without parentheses is an old convention for passing a single 
return result, and must always be sandwiched between  C<.begin_return> 
and C<.end_return>.
And, there's another C<.return> without parentheses that performs a 
tail-call, invoking a sub or method reusing the same return 
continuation.  This should also be renamed.
The only directive that should be named C<.return> is the one that 
returns a value or values (i.e. it's syntactic sugar for a whole 
collection of low-level directives/opcodes).
Allison