Dear Monks, I have a huge array of keywords in array 1(around 150). I have two more arrays that contain elements of the 1st array (array 2 and 3). What is the best way to search for elements of array 1 in array 2 and 3. This is what I am doing right now. 
use strict;
use warnings;
my @choices = qw/Apple Banana Tiger Lion Cat Turtle/; # Big array with
+ 150 elements
my @Single = qw/Apple Turtle/;
my @Double = qw/Lion/;
foreach(@choices){
             my $field = $_;
                 if (grep {$_ eq $field} @Single) {
                $flag =1;
                }
         elsif (grep {$_ eq $field} @Double) {
                $flag =2;
                }
         else{
                $flag =0;
                }
}

[download]
Basically I would like to assign a flag value to each element of choices. Depending on the value of flag, each element of @choices will be parsed separately. Would it be more efficient to save choices as a hash? Any inputs would be appreciated. Thanks! :)

In reply to The most efficient way for searching for an element in an array? by Ppeoc

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