my @guesses = ('Place De La Gare', 'Rennes'); my $grei = do { # this case insensitive re added local $" = '|'; qr/@{[map {quotemeta} @guesses]}/i; }; my $gre = do { local $" = '|'; qr/@{[map {quotemeta} @guesses]}/; }; my %score; for (@data) { $score{$_} = () = m/($grei)/g; # edited. # $score{$_} += () = m/($gre)/g; # uncomment to give extra # credit for exact match } # sort keys by value or grep for threshold to pick best matches