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, init_relay => 1, ); my @result = mce_loop { my $token = $_; my $regex = build_regex($token); my @line_results = grep { $_ ne $token and /$regex/ } @tokens; MCE::relay { MCE->gather(\@line_results) if @line_results; }; } @tokens; MCE::Loop->finish; print Dumper(\@result), "\n"; __END__ $VAR1 = [ [ 'bc' ], [ 'cd' ], [ 'de' ], [ 'ef' ], [ 'fg' ], [ 'gh' ] ];