#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; my $str = "aabceezazerrfde"; my $wanted = "aez"; my @values = (7,2,26); my $counter = 0; my $tot = 0; my $letter = ''; my $indx; while ($counter < length($str) ) { $letter = substr($str, $counter, 1); $indx = index($wanted, $letter); if ( $indx != -1 ) { $tot = $tot + $values[$indx]; } $counter++; } print $tot;