my %hash; @hash{@arr2}=(1) x @arr2; my @cleaned=grep !$hash{$_},@arr1; #### E:\Bin>perldoc -q "difference of two arrays" Found in E:\Perl\lib\pod\perlfaq4.pod How do I compute the difference of two arrays? How do I compute the intersection of two arrays? Use a hash. Here's code to do both and more. It assumes that each element is unique in a given array: @union = @intersection = @difference = (); %count = (); foreach $element (@array1, @array2) { $count{$element}++ } foreach $element (keys %count) { push @union, $element; push @{ $count{$element} > 1 ? \@intersection : \@difference }, $element; } Note that this is the *symmetric difference*, that is, all elements in either A or in B but not in both. Think of it as an xor operation.