c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le "use Data::Dump; ;; use constant DIPEPS => qw(AA AL DA DE DV VD DW QD SD HD ED DY VE EN EI KE NV VP FV SS WK KK); use constant N_DIPEPS => scalar DIPEPS; ;; my ($dipep) = map qr{ (?i) (?: $_) }xms, join '|', DIPEPS ; print $dipep; ;; my %count; for my $seq (qw(AAALVDENEC AATLVDEGDG)) { $count{$seq}{$1} = 1 while $seq =~ m{ (?= ($dipep)) }xmsg; } dd \%count; ;; for my $seq (keys %count) { my $sum = keys %{ $count{$seq} }; my $abs = N_DIPEPS - $sum; print qq{$seq: sum = $sum, abs = $abs}; } " (?^msx: (?i) (?: AA|AL|DA|DE|DV|VD|DW|QD|SD|HD|ED|DY|VE|EN|EI|KE|NV|VP|FV|SS|WK|KK) ) { AAALVDENEC => { AA => 1, AL => 1, DE => 1, EN => 1, VD => 1 }, AATLVDEGDG => { AA => 1, DE => 1, VD => 1 }, } AAALVDENEC: sum = 5, abs = 17 AATLVDEGDG: sum = 3, abs = 19