Given: a list of strings, in my case a list of filenames (log files from a simulation package), e.g. @files = qw(model4run1 model2run1 model4run2 model1run1) Output: the set of characters common to the begining of all the strings, in the above example "model"

I am having a mental block on this little snippet which, though working, simply does not look elegant to me yet. Something tells me it could be a simple map application, but my mental map interface seems to be read-only. I'd appreciate any and all suggestions, comments, or even golf. 

my $posn = -1;
my $same = 1;
while(defined $same){
  die if $posn > length $files[0];
  my $chr = substr($files[0], ++$posn, 1);
  for my $name (1..$#files) {
    undef $same and last if(substr($files[$name], $posn, 1) ne $chr 
                                  or length $files[$name] < $posn);
  }
}

print 'Prefix is "', substr($files[0], 0, $posn), '"';

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In reply to Find common prefix from a list of strings by Albannach

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