I am just curious which methods people use for this very common problem and which is the most popular
Generally I'll just use a grep and double negation e.g 
my @array = qw/ a list of words /;
print "yep, it's there"
  if !!grep { $_ eq "of" } @array;

__output__

yep, it's there

[download]
Nice and efficient in newer versions of perl (5.6.1+ ?) as it won't build a list IRC. Even quicker would be a simple regex 
my @array = qw/ a list of words /;
print "yep, it's there"
  if "of" =~ /\b (?: ${\join('|', @array) }) \b/x;

__output__

yep, it's there

[download]
It's not quicker on it's own (list size etc will effect performance) but if you prebuild the word list it should be quicker than grepping every time.
HTH

_________
broquaint

In reply to Re: Checking a string's presence within an array. by broquaint
in thread Checking a string's presence within an array. by antirice

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