my @number = qw(3.34 3.67 4.75 4.98); my $maxdiff = 0; my @index = (); foreach my $i ( 1 .. @number-1 ){ my $diff = abs( $number[$i] - $number[$i-1] ); if( $diff > $maxdiff ){ $maxdiff = $diff; @index = ($i-1,$i); } } if( @index ){ printf "%f: %f , %f\n", $maxdiff, @number[ @index ] }