>perl -wMstrict -le "use List::MoreUtils qw(any); ;; my @ra = qw(foo BAR baz quux boff); ;; for my $string (qw(BAR bar xyzzy)) { print qq{'$string' is }, check_stack($string, \@ra) ? '' : 'NOT ', qq{in (@ra)}; } ;; sub check_stack { my ($string, $array_ref) = @_; return any { $string eq $_ } @$array_ref; } " 'BAR' is in (foo BAR baz quux boff) 'bar' is NOT in (foo BAR baz quux boff) 'xyzzy' is NOT in (foo BAR baz quux boff)