perl -wMstrict -e ' my @colors = qw(red green blue yellow pink purple brown); my @drop = qw(pink purple); my @save = (); while ( my ($num, $val) = each @colors ) { unless ($val eq $drop[0] or $val eq $drop[1]) { push @save, $colors[$num]; } } print "@save \n"; ' __output__ red green blue yellow brown