How can I verify that a value is present in an array (list) in Perl?

Question

I have a list of possible values:

@a = qw(foo bar baz);

How do I check in a concise way that a value $val is present or absent

Answer 1

$ perl -e '@a = qw(foo bar baz);$val="bar";
if (grep{$_ eq $val} @a) {
  print "found"
} else {
  print "not found"
}'

found

$val='baq';

not found