Greetings, I am seeking a more efficient method for searching through an array. I think that my problem will be best explained with some code. Here is what I am doing: 
foreach $element(@array){
   foreach $compare(@array){
      if ($element == $compare){next}
      <see if $element and $compare meet requirements>
   }
}

[download]
Each time the script runs, the array is rewritten to up to about 1000 times with the number of elements ranging from about 200-600. Each element of the array has the form "X12:345" I am comparing $element and $compare to find a match such that if $element = X12:345, I want to find $compare = X0:344 or $compare = X24:344. Any suggestions as to how I can make this more efficient would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

In reply to recursive array search by state-o-dis-array

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.