select name
from phone_book
where last_name in ("Smith","Jones","Schmidtz")
[download]

In this case, there is a very easy way of doing this.
Now all you really have to do it go if ($var =~ /^[12345]/).
Now if you wanted to do a search through strings, i would suggest going,  if ($var =~ /^[qw(Smith Jones Schmidtz)]/).
I tested both scripts on Win2k and Active Perl 5.6.1. So basically it works to  if ($variable =~ /^##data to search through here##/). this means if $variable finds that any of the search variables are true (if you don't use ^ then it does an and/or search), it does it's required task.


Update:
With help from many people, when doing a string search, drop the [] from a string search, or else your searching through the characters of the string.
----------------------------
Wiz, The VooDoo Doll
Head Master of 12:30 Productions
----------------------------

As was already pointed out, this if ($var =~ /^[qw(Smith Jones Schmidtz)]/) doesn't work as it just creates a character class equivalent to [SmithJonescdz] - which just compares to the first character of $var. Two solutions:

my @names = qw(Smith Jones Schmidtz);
my $pattern = join '|', @names;

if ($var =~ /^(?:$pattern)/)

# or quicker
if ($var =~ /^Smith/ || $var =~ /^Jones/ || $var =~ /^Schmidtz/)
[download]

-- Hofmator

Wiz,

I tried your code and I am either missing something or it does not work as advertised. See my following code...

my @foo = qw(JohnSmith Smiccky aaaaaa);

foreach my $f (@foo) {
    print "Yep $f \n" if ($f =~ /^[qw(Smith Jones)]/);
}
[download]

The result I get is ..

Yep JohnSmith 
Yep Smiccky
[download]

Which is quite obviously not an "in" relationship. If I add a "JJJJJ" entry to the list, that one will match as well. So it seems that you are still creating a set of individual characters, not something larger.

=pod

/^[adsf0asd]/ will match if $_ contains a or d or f or 0 or s .
It matches character classes, not words.

=cut

my @matchthis = qw(abe age rod);
my $beginswiththis = join '|', @matchthis;
print "looking for strings that begin with '$beginswiththis'\n";

@_ = qw( abey AbEy abeoy agg aggb agge agee rodo rodd rddo);

print "looking through:", join(' ', map { "'".$_."'" } @_),"\n";

for (@_) {
print "Found one: ",$_,"\n" if(/^($beginswiththis)/);
}
[download]