my %searchs = (
    stringa => sub { print "matched on stringa\n"; },
    stringb => sub { print "regex on string b\n";  },
    stringc => sub { print "C match\n";            },
);

my %compiled =
    map { $_ => qr/\Q$_/ }
    keys %searchs
;

while (<DATA>) {
    chomp;
    if (/^\*{3} (.+)/) {
        print "Found the following strings within body $1\n";
        next;
    }

    for my $search_string (keys %searchs) {
        if (/$compiled{ $search_string }/) {
            $searches{ $search_string }->();
        }
    }
}
[download]

You're not very clear on why you don't just do

while (<DATA>) {
    chomp;
    if (/^\*{3} (.+)/) {
        print "Found the following strings within body $1\n";
        next;
    }

    /patterna/ && print "matched on stringa\n";
    /patternb/ && print "regex on string b\n";
    /patternc/ && print "C match\n";
}
[download]

Additional notes:

• if (/.../g) is virtually always wrong.
• You said your array contained strings which I take to mean arbitrary text, but you treat them as regular expression patterns. Fixed with \Q above.
• You are recompiling the same regex patterns over and over again. I made changes to compile them only once each.

---

---

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! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

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:
	&		&
	<		&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.