$ perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings -e ' my @strings = qw{a a a b b c d d e e e}; my $server = "lsrch1"; # Fudge for demo my @lsrch1; my %params; for my $string (@strings) { if ($server eq "lsrch1") { push @lsrch1, $string unless $params{$string}++; } } print "\@strings: @strings\n"; print "\%params keys: @{[sort keys %params]}\n"; print "\@lsrch1: @lsrch1\n"; ' @strings: a a a b b c d d e e e %params keys: a b c d e @lsrch1: a b c d e