Here is a shorter way using the power of grep. All we do is sort our available letters and compare them to the sorted letters of our dictionary words. 

@dict = qw (foo oof fff bar baz);
$letters = 'ofo';
$sorted  = join '', sort split//, $letters;

@words = grep{ $sorted eq join '', sort split// }@dict;

print "@words";

[download]

Update

As pointed out by dragonchild my first post which used this test in the grep /^[$letters]{$length}$/ instead of the $sorted test would pick up all sorts of incorrect stuff. I realised this just after I posted but it was too late.... ++ for being far more on the ball than me.

Update 2

For efficiency you could add another test to the grep like this: 

@dict = qw (foo oof fff bar baz);
$letters = 'ofo';
$sorted  = join '', sort split//, $letters;
$length  = length $letters;

@words = grep{ $length == length  and 
               $sorted eq join '', sort split// }@dict;

print "@words";

[download]

The purpose of the $length test is to immediately fail if the length of our dict word is wrong thus avoiding the overhead of a sort as the match is bound to fail. Fixed classic = instead of == newbie Perl error thanks to Falkkin

cheers

tachyon

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

In reply to Re: Is there a better way? by tachyon
in thread Is there a better way for finding anagrams? by perl_wizard2

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