use strict; use warnings; my @array = qw( 0 0 7 abc 0 ); for my $i ([0, 1, 4], [0, 1, 3, 4], [1], [], [2]) { print "(@array[ @$i ]): "; if (grep !/^0$/, @array[ @$i ]) # !/^0$/ would be better as $_ ne '0' { print "not all are zero\n"; } else { print "all are zero\n"; } }