Please consider the following code:- 

$sample = "A-E-H-L";

@options = ( "A-B-F-G-H-K-M",    # idx = 0
             "A-E-G-H-L",        # idx = 1
             "A-C-E-G-H-J-L",    # idx = 2
             "B-F-H-K",          # idx = 3
             "A-B-F-G-H-K-L",    # idx = 4  
             "C-H"               # idx = 5
            );

$mc = "[A,E,H,L]";

@matches = grep(/$mc/, @options);

foreach $x (@matches) {
   printf("> %s\n", $x);

}

[download]

The intention is to find each of the elements in @options that includes all of the elements in $sample. The hyphens ("-") are sort-of important, mainly because they are delimiters between each 'sub-element'.

The code I've shown obviously doesn't work -- I was trying to establish a 'class' for a regex -- but let me explain it using the contents of $sample:...

For the example of "A-E-H-L", I'm looking in the @options array for those elements that contain "A" and "E" and "H" and "L". If $options[$i] contains all of those items ("A", "E", etc), then it will be recorded as a match. Thus, the @matches array should, ideally contain the elements:-

@matches = (1,2);

Note that the elements of $sample will always be in 'increasing' order (the data could be "A-F-H" but it won't be "H-A-F").

An interesting generalization of this would be to match on a subset of $sample. For example, if we allow a subset of elements from $sample to match, we would have the resulting @matches = (0,1,2,3,4,5).

There are probably a lot of other options that could be considered... but this is a good start, I think.

Would appreciate any pointers, please...

In reply to Pattern Matching with a Selected Sub-String by ozboomer

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