opendir(my $dh, '.') or die("Unable to list directory: $!\n"); my @patterns = map { qr/\Q$_\E/ } grep { /^\.\.?$/ } readdir($dh); open(my $fh_in, 'test.txt') or die("Unable to open input file test.txt: $!\n"); while (my $line = <$fh_in>) { chomp $line; foreach my $pattern (@patterns) { print("Match found\n") if $line =~ $pattern; } }