Well, you can improve your regex to /^[rgtnaie]{9}$/. If you wanted to, you could also do something like: 

my $charclass = "aeginrt";
my $num = 9;
if (/^[$charclass]{$num}$/) {
# rest of code here

[download]
That way, you can easily change what it is you're working with. Of course, that doesn't help you with determining if it has the right amount of the right letters. So, you could do something like: 

my %num_letters = ( a => 1,
                    e => 2,
                    g => 1,
                    i => 1,
                    n => 1,
                    r => 1,
                    t => 2,
                  );

my $charclass = join "", keys %num_letters;
my $num_chars = 0;
$num_chars += $num_letters{$_} foreach keys %num_letters;

open DICT, "<linux.words";
WORD:
while (my $word = <DICT>) {
    my %letters = %num_letters;
    chomp $word;
    next WORD unless $word =~ /^[$char_class]{$num_chars}$/;

    while (my $letter = chop($word)) {
        $letters{$letter}--;
    }
    foreach my $letter (keys %letters) {
        next WORD if ($letters{$letter} != 0);
    }
    print "Found $word\n";
}
close DICT;

[download]

------
/me wants to be the brightest bulb in the chandelier!

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

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.