spanner,
In the spirit of TIMTOWTDI, I provide the following code:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my @largeArray;
$largeArray[0] = "this is a test";
$largeArray[1] = "this is another test";
$largeArray[2] = "that is another test";
$largeArray[3] = "test this is another";

my @searchCriteria;
$searchCriteria[0] = "another";
$searchCriteria[1] = "test";

my $match_code = join(' and ', map "\$_[0] =~ /\Q$_\E/", @searchCriter
+ia );
my $matcher = eval "sub { $match_code }; ";
my @newArray = grep $matcher->($_), @largeArray;

print "$_\n" foreach(@newArray);
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Let me explain my code as it may not appear to be self-explanatory:

my $match_code = a scalar variable that we will be building a sub-routine in

my $matcher = a way to evaluate the sub easily

The grep pulls out the matching entries from @largeArray

I would be interested in seeing how this compares in a benchmark with your real data compared to some of the solutions others have provided.

Cheers - L~R

Update: Some great (cosmetic as well as performance) code changes as pointed out by diotalevi in the CB (and below)

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