Date: 2008apr19 Language: perl Keywords: member Q. How do I check if a string is in a perl array? A. Using the builtin grep function is efficient.

sub contains($@) { my($target, @list) = @_; $target = quotemeta($target); return grep(/^$target$/, @list) > 0; } # Example use: sub main() { my(@list) = qw(aaa bbb ccc); if (contains('bbb', @list)) { print "bbb is in the list\n"; } else { print "bbb is NOT in the list\n"; } if (contains('eee', @list)) { print "eee is in the list\n"; } else { print "eee is NOT in the list\n"; } } main();