#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; my @a1=qw(a b c d e f g); my @a2=qw(b g); my @a3=qw(c d e f g h); sub issubset { ($a,$b)=@_; for my $x (@$b) { return ("not a subset") unless grep {$x eq $_} @$a; } return ("a subset"); } print "a2 is ",issubset(\@a1,\@a2)," of a1\n"; print "a3 is ",issubset(\@a1,\@a3)," of a1\n"; __END__ Output is: a2 is a subset of a1 a3 is not a subset of a1