grep BLOCK LIST grep EXPR,LIST This is similar in spirit to, but not the same as, grep(1) and its relatives. In particular, it is not limited to using regular expressions. Evaluates the BLOCK or EXPR for each element of LIST (locally setting "$_" to each element) and returns the list value consisting of those ele­ments for which the expression evaluated to true. In scalar context, returns the number of times the expression was true. @foo = grep(!/^#/, @bar); # weed out comments or equivalently, @foo = grep {!/^#/} @bar; # weed out comments