If this is what you want to do then you could do any of these:

for my $i ( 0..11 ) {
   print "yes it's a month\n" if $month eq $monthnames[$i];
}

for my $valid_months ( @monthnames ) {
   print "yes it's a month\n" if $month eq $valid_months;
}

print "Yes it's a month\n" if grep { $_ eq $month } @monthnames;
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You would be better to use a hash as a lookup table like this:

my @months = qw( jan feb mar apr may jun jul aug sep oct nov dec);
my %monthnames;
# create lookup table
$monthnames{$_}++ for @months;
print "Yes it's a month!" if exists $monthnames{$month};
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Warning

In your if($month = $array[i]){ statement you have used = which is the assignment operator when what you really wanted was eq the string equality operator. In perl we have:

$a = 1;      # set $a to 1
$a == 1;     # returns a true value if $a is numerically equal to 1
$a eq 'foo'  # returns a true value if $a is equal to the string value
+ 'foo'
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Using = when you mean == or eq can be very confusing. The assignmet will always succeed so the conditional statement is generally also always true so you have a nasty bug that not only fails to work as expected but also modifies your data. You also need to make sure you use eq rather than == when you want a string comparison:

print "What, a string is numerically == 0?" if 'foo' == 0;
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tachyon

s&&rsenoyhcatreve&&&s&n.+t&"$'$`$\"$\&"&ee&&y&srve&&d&&print

Using = when you mean == or eq can be very confusing.

Which is why it is a good idea to put the the constant on left-hand side of a numerical comparison

0 == $foo; # GOOD
0 =  $foo; # BAD

__output__

Can't modify constant item in scalar assignment at - line 2, near "$fo
+o;"
Execution of - aborted due to compilation errors.
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So we get a nice compile-time error if we ever slip up with our numerical comparisons, hurrah!
HTH

_________
broquaint

Cute, don't know if I could ever get into the habit but cute nonethless.

cheers

tachyon

s&&rsenoyhcatreve&&&s&n.+t&"$'$`$\"$\&"&ee&&y&srve&&d&&print

I also exagerate the visible difference by writing assignment with asymetric spacing and equality with symetric spacing.

$a= 5;
if ($a==$b || $c == $d)
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Although I'm familiar with this practice I really don't care for it much. Admittedly, it's just a personal preference. I don't think it flows as well when reading it though. More importantly, there simply is no substitute for learning to be cautious. This trick works nicely when one of the operands is a constant but not at all when they are both variables.

-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";

my @months=qw(jan feb mar);
my $month="jan";
print "Found" if grep{$month eq $_}@months;
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foreach $month (@array) {
   print "$month\n";
}
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print "yes it's a month\n"
   if grep ($_ eq $month, @array);
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More generally, you could use a foreach loop to look at each element in turn.

Use eq for string comparisons. = is assignment, == is numeric comparison.

—John

$i = 0;
where 12 is the size of my array. and i is an index, or is there an al
+ternative?
while($i != 12){
    if($month = $array[i]){
         print "yes it's a month\n";
}
}
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foreach my $item ($array) {
   print "its the month of $month\n" if ($month eq $array[$i];
}
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$i = 0;
where 12 is the size of my array. and i is an index, or is there an al
+ternative?
while($i != 12){
    if($month = $array[i]){
         print "yes it's a month\n";
}
}
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However you would do better with code like this:

for $i (0..$#array) { # just in case they change the number of months 
+:)
  next unless ($month eq $array[$i]); # skip if not equal
  print "Yes its a month\n";
  last; # no need to check other months so exit loop
}
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Dingus