use strict; my @keywords=qw/foo bar 12345 abcd/; my $string = "foobarfoo1234523423412345abcdefsadfabc"; my %result; my $pattern = join "|", @keywords; while ($string =~ /($pattern)/ig) { $result{$1}++; } foreach my $s (keys %result){ print "$s=>$result{$s}\n"; }