I agree with all the above (simple things simple etc.) but am wondering what happens if you have two matching elements. I don't remember anybody saying they were unique, and an array just looks like a set when you use qw() but it isn't one mathematically.

So maybe you should return an array, sorted of course.

Then may I propose the most idiomatic would be to use another language, SQL of course? I am thinking of DBD::RAM. You could say something like 

print $dbh->selectcol_arrayref(qq [
   SELECT phrase FROM my_phrases WHERE id = 1 ORDER BY phrase
 ])->[0];

[download]

Some other neat looking modules may include Search::InvertedIndex, Search::Binary, and Math::IntervalSearch (Search where an element lies in a list of sorted elements).

..to answer japhy and merlyn below, honored to join this thread with you both. To be sure, grep is good. Thank you for your elegant code.

In reply to Re: Simple things should be coded simply (Re: Idiomatic Array Index Search?) by mattr
in thread Idiomatic Array Index Search? by footpad

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