use strict; use warnings; use MCE::Loop; use Data::Dumper; my @tokens = qw( ab bc cd de ef fg gh ); sub build_regex { my ($token) = @_; chop $token; } MCE::Loop->init( chunk_size => 1, max_workers => 4, ); my %result = mce_loop { my $token = $_; my $regex = build_regex($token); my @line_results = grep { $_ ne $token and /$regex/ } @tokens; MCE->gather( $token => \@line_results ) if @line_results; } @tokens; MCE::Loop->finish; print Dumper(\%result), "\n"; __END__ $VAR1 = { 'ef' => [ 'fg' ], 'fg' => [ 'gh' ], 'bc' => [ 'cd' ], 'ab' => [ 'bc' ], 'cd' => [ 'de' ], 'de' => [ 'ef' ] };