if ( grep { $key eq $_ } qw(ID TITLE GENE CYTOBAND LOCUSLINK CHROMOSOM
+E SCOUNT) ) {
  # do your stuff
}
[download]

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
my $key = 'JUMP';

if (
  ($key eq 'ID')
    or ('TITLE')
    or ('GENE')
    or ('CYTOBAND')
    or ('LOCUSLINK')
    or ('CHROMOSOME')
    or ('SCOUNT')
) {
    print "I don't know why this is printing.\n";
}
[download]

The other common options are:

if (grep {$key eq $_} qw(ID TITLE GENE CYTOBAND LOCUSLINK CHROMOSOME S
+COUNT)) {
  print "This didn't print, did it?\n";
}
[download]

if (exists $is_valid{$key}) {
  print "Key '$key' is a valid key\n";
}
[download]

'TITLE' or 'GENE' or 'CYTOBAND' or 'LOCUSLINK' or 'CHROMOSOME' or 'SCO
+UNT'
[download]

You will want to repeat the $key eq 'something' bit, or have possible matches in a pattern match a la /(TITLE|GENE|CYTOBAND|etc..)/, or have the possible matches in an array and grep through it (perldoc -f grep), or in a hash and do one if exists $hash{$key}....

Cheers,
KM

use Quantum::Superpositions;
if($key eq any('ID','TITLE','GENE','CYTOBAND','LOCUSLINK',CHROMOSOME',
+'SCOUNT'))
{
   print 'Kiss your old C-logic woes goodbye.';
}
[download]

AgentM Systems nor Nasca Enterprises nor Bone::Easy nor Macperl is responsible for the comments made by AgentM. Remember, you can build any logical system with NOR.

if ( ($key eq 'ID') or 'TITLE' or 'GENE' or 'CYTOBAND'
     or 'LOCUSLINK' or 'CHROMOSOME' or 'SCOUNT')
  # ...
}
[download]

... is the same thing. The strings 'TITLE', etc. are considered true by perl.

(update: ... and everyone beats me and gives better answers. Sigh...)

if (' ID TITLE GENE CYTOBAND LOCUSLINK CHROMOSOME SCOUNT ' =~ m/ $key 
+/) {
    print "stuff.\n";
}
[download]

NOTE: The spaces in this solution are key in making sure the right word is being matched.

Zenon Zabinski | zdog | zdog7@hotmail.com

Note that if $key is a user-provided value, doing this is not a good idea. At the very least you would want to enclose the whole thing in an eval in case $key contains some characters that upset the match operator (for example, if $key contains **, the program will die with "nested *?+ in regexp"). In the worst case, $key could contain something that makes Perl execute arbitrary code. So for doing something like this, you have to make sure that $key is properly untainted.

Update: You could also use \Q, as in "string" =~ m/ \Q$key /

--ZZamboni

You are very, very wrong.

'ID' or 'TITLE' or 'GENE' or 'CYTOBAND' or 
'LOCUSLINK' or 'CHROMOSOME' or 'SCOUNT'
[download]

evaluates to 'ID'.

use strict;
my $key = 'TITLE';

unless (($key) eq ('ID' or 'TITLE' or 'GENE' or 'CYTOBAND' or 
                   'LOCUSLINK' or 'CHROMOSOME' or 'SCOUNT')) {
    print "Damian is wrong\n";
}
[download]

This prints "Damian is wrong".

-- Abigail

The only way the conditional in your snippet evaluates to true is if $key=='ID'. Try setting $key to 'GENE', for example (which is one of the valid values), and you'll see.

--ZZamboni

delete

Tiptoeing up to a Perl hacker.
Dave AKA damian

I admit, that's pretty cool. But I personally like this just a bit better (only because it takes up less space on the line):

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my $key = 'JUMP';

if ($key =~ /^(ID|TITLE|GENE|CYTOBAND|LOCUSLINK|CHROMOSOME|SCOUNT)$/) 
+{
   print "I don't know why this is printing.\n";
}
[download]

I think there's someway that might be broken, though, if I remember my reading on regexes... but if you chomp everything right, I think it will accomplish the same thing (with the added benefit(?) of placing exactly what it matched in $1).

CheeseLord