my @patterns = qw( create drop delete update insert ); my $regexp; $regexp = Regexp::List->new(modifiers => 'i')->list2re(@patterns); $regexp = qr/\b(?:$regexp)\b/; ... while ($data = $sth->fetchrow_arrayref()) { # index is faster than regexps on constant strings. next if index(lc($data->[10]), 'tempdb') >= 0; if ($data->[13] =~ $regexp) { print "$data->[3] $data->[9] $data->[10] $data->[13]\n"; last; } }