The apprentice nervously requests feedback from the more experienced...

Given a small set of sorted values stored in an array, is this an idiomatic way to find the index of a given value?

sub getArrayIndex
# --------------------------------------------------------------
# When given a scalar and an array, this either returns the 
# of the scalar in the array or -1 (not found).
# --------------------------------------------------------------
{
   my $value = shift;
   my @values = @_;
   my $result = -1;

   for ( my $index = 0; $index < @values; $index++ )
   {
      if ( $value eq $values[ $index ] )
      { 
         $result = $index;
         last;
      }
   }
   return $result;
}
[download]

Assorted Notes:

• The arrays I'm working with are relatively small (~50 elements each) and I'm only looking for a direct, case-sensitive match.

• This node (and perlfaq4) suggests that a hash may be more appropriate. However, the array contains values in a required (non-trivial) order, so a hash doesn't seem feasible. Am I mistaken?

• This node provides a solution, however perlfaq4 suggests grep is inefficent. Is that true?

• My approach is based on one found in the CookBook (p112), but I wonder if there's an easier way or if I'm confused--again.

It seems to work in my limited testing, however, I'm worried that I might be following a meme, CCP, or just plain not grokking something.

--f

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