use warnings; use strict; use Data::Dumper; my @allwords = qw( mary had a little lamb its fleece was white as snow ); my @checkwords = qw( little lamb fleece everywhere ); print "All words were ", check_array_for_words(\@allwords, \@checkwords) ? "" : "not ", "found.\n"; sub check_array_for_words { my ($ar_allwords, $ar_checkwords) = @_; my %hash; foreach (@$ar_allwords){ $hash{$_} = undef; } print Dumper(\%hash); foreach (@$ar_checkwords) { if (not exists $hash{$_}) { return 0; } } return 1; } __END__ $VAR1 = { 'had' => undef, 'lamb' => undef, 'a' => undef, 'fleece' => undef, 'little' => undef, 'white' => undef, 'as' => undef, 'was' => undef, 'mary' => undef, 'snow' => undef, 'its' => undef }; All words were not found.