What are valid Perl module return values?

Question

The common practice in Perl is of course to end modules with 1; so that a call to require can then be checked for success. Is there any reason that the return

Answer 1

Anything is a valid return value. If you want the require to succeed, it needs to be a true value. If you don't want the require to succeed (e.g. unsupported platform, missing library), use a false value.

To see what other people have used as return values, check out Acme::ReturnValue.

People don't expect to use the return value for anything, so I wouldn't confuse people by trying to do that, no matter how clever it seems at the time. :)