my $string = '100,two hundred,300,400,500,600,700,800'; my @checks = ( qw/200 400 600 700 900/ ); my @items = split(/,/, $string); for my $check (@checks) { if ( grep { $_ eq $checks } @items ) { print "'${check}' is in '${string}'\n"; } else { print "'${check}' is NOT in '${string}'\n"; } }