I've been doing Perl for about 5 years, and I'm *NO* expert, but I have to say that to me that is at least somewhat obfuscated code. I have no problem with the while, but the foreach: 
    foreach my $num (split /::/ => $value) {

[download]
mystifies me - what is the split splitting? When split isn't given an arg to split, it splits $_, but what is $_ in this case, since the while loop gets $key and $value?

IMHO, more straightforward code, albeit sometimes longer code, is better: 
  my %matches = map {$_ => 1} 17, 83, 114, 205, 407;  
  while (my ($key, $value) = each %hash) {
    my @value_tokens = split /::/, $value;
    foreach my $value_token (@value_tokens) {
      if ($matches{$value_token}) {
         print "$key: $value\n";
         $found = 1;
         last; ### break out of foreach
      }
    } ### end foreach
    if $found:
      next;
    }
  } ### end while

[download]
I'm not entirely sure I understand the original intent, so this solution may need some work.

HTH.

In reply to Re: Re: Searching a database by hmerrill
in thread Searching a database by Anonymous Monk

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