As long as the test depends only on the individual element, you can use the flip-flop operator "..". 
@ans = grep { ($_ > 0) .. 0 } @array;
$found = shift @ans;

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In reply to Re: Finding the first element that passes a test - then saving the rest. by jmm
in thread Finding the first element that passes a test - then saving the rest. by Anonymous Monk

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