Probably not what you're looking for, but I'd be tempted, without more context of where you're using this, to try: 

  use List::Util qw(first);
  my $matched = first { $var =~ $_ } @pats;

[download]
But that probably doesn't quite fill your requirement, I'm betting.

In reply to Re: Programmatic regex disjunction by Tanktalus
in thread Programmatic regex disjunction by gaal

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