I use this kind of stuff quite a bit. Of course it can get confusing if your subs are large, but subs should not be large anyway.

Also compare the relatively simple

sub direct_return {
  my ($enum,$check_type,$enums) = @_;
  foreach my $enum (@$enums) {
    return 1 if ( $check_type eq $enum);
  }
  return;
}
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to the mess you get when you start to believe that there should be only one return in a sub:

sub otherwise {
  my ($enum,$check_type,$enums) = @_;
  my $flag = 0;
 LOOP:
  foreach my $enum (@$enums) {
    if ( $check_type eq $enum) {
      $flag = 1;
      last LOOP;  # not really needed unless you've got nested loops
    }
  }
  return $flag ? $flag : wantarray ? () : undef;
}
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