I have a $target string eg: "PEARLYGATES" and I want to check if another $word eg: "EASYPEASY" can be made from it. This means that the count of each letter in the second word must be less than or equal to the count of the same letter in the first word. Since there are two S's and two Y's in EASYPEASY, it is not inclulded in PEARLYGATES.

I have a way, but I keep thinking there must be a better way. What better way to find out and learn than to ask here?

At the end of the following code, $ok tells if it is contained or not.

$_ = $target;
my $ok=1;
for my $let (split //,$word)
{ $ok=0, last unless s/$let//;
}

[download]

In reply to Check if a word is included in another by b4swine

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.