How do I search a Perl array for a matching string?

Question

What is the smartest way of searching through an array of strings for a matching string in Perl?

One caveat, I would like the search to be case-insensitive

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Answer 1

For just a boolean match result or for a count of occurrences, you could use:

use 5.014; use strict; use warnings;
my @foo=('hello', 'world', 'foo', 'bar', 'hello world', 'HeLlo');
my $patterns=join(',',@foo);
for my $str (qw(quux world hello hEllO)) {
    my $count=map {m/^$str$/i} @foo;
    if ($count) {
        print "I found '$str' $count time(s) in '$patterns'\n";
    } else {
        print "I could not find '$str' in the pattern list\n"
    };
}

Output:

I could not find 'quux' in the pattern list
I found 'world' 1 time(s) in 'hello,world,foo,bar,hello world,HeLlo'
I found 'hello' 2 time(s) in 'hello,world,foo,bar,hello world,HeLlo'
I found 'hEllO' 2 time(s) in 'hello,world,foo,bar,hello world,HeLlo'

Does not require to use a module.
Of course it's less "expandable" and versatile as some code above.
I use this for interactive user answers to match against a predefined set of case unsensitive answers.