use strict; use warnings; use feature qw/ say /; my @captains = qw/ kirk picard popeye /; my $commanded_by = trivia( @captains ); for my $captain ( sort keys %{ $commanded_by } ) { say sprintf '%s was on Enterprise #: %s', ucfirst $captain, join ', ', @{ $commanded_by->{ $captain } }; } sub trivia { my @captains = @_; my %commands = ( kirk => [ 'EntTOS', 'EntA' ], picard => [ 'EntD', 'EntE' ], ); my %output; $output{ $_ } = $commands{ $_ } || [] for @captains; return \%output; } __END__ #### $ perl 1202155.pl Kirk was on Enterprise #: EntTOS, EntA Picard was on Enterprise #: EntD, EntE Popeye was on Enterprise #: