Raku Books / Using Raku / Aggregate Data Types / Working with subroutines

65. Passing arrays to subroutines

Pass data, contained in an array, to a subroutine.

An array can be passed to a subroutine as easily as a scalar can. You simply define it in a signature and pass it together with other arguments.

my @colours = <red green blue>;

sub f(@data, $sep) {
    @data.join($sep).say;
}

f(@colours, ', '); # Prints: red, green, blue

The @colours array is passed to the f sub, and it lands in the @data variable inside the sub. An additional second argument, $sep, receives its own data.

In cases when a sub expects separate scalars, and you’ve got your data in an array, flattening it helps:

sub g($a, $b, $c, $sep) {
    say "$a$sep$b$sep$c";
}
g(|@colours, ', '); # Prints: red, green, blue

In the sub call, an array name is prefixed with a vertical bar, and the compiler, therefore, knows that you are not passing an array as a whole but that you are using its elements as values to be assigned to the scalar arguments $a, $b, and $c.

The number of elements in the array has to match with the number of corresponding subroutine arguments, otherwise one of the following errors oc-

curs: Too few positionals passed or Too many positionals passed.

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65. Passing arrays to subroutines

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