#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; my %factories = ( 'farms' => 'horses'); my $tmpf = 'farms'; my $match = "horses on the farm!"; print "$tmpf\n"; # prints 'farms' print keys( %factories), "\n"; # 'farms' is one of them. if ( defined $factories{$tmpf} ) { print "yay!\n" if $match =~ m/$factories{$tmpf}/; } #### farms farms yay!