use strict;
my @a = qw(hubba bubba abba zappa);
print blah("bubba", @a), "\n";
print blah("bubba", @a), "\n";

sub blah {
    my($look_for, @array)=@_;
    
    my @elements_we_want;
    my $string = 
        '(undef, @elements_we_want) = grep { $_ eq $look_for .. 1 } @array;';
    eval $string;
    
    return @elements_we_want;
}