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

If you will be doing many searches of the array, AND matching always is defined as string equivalence, then you can normalize your data and use a hash.

my @strings = qw( aAa Bbb cCC DDD eee );

my %string_lut;

# Init via slice:
@string_lut{ map uc, @strings } = ();

# or use a for loop:
#    for my $string ( @strings ) {
#        $string_lut{ uc($string) } = undef;
#    }


#Look for a string:

my $search = 'AAa';

print "'$string' ", 
    ( exists $string_lut{ uc $string ? "IS" : "is NOT" ),
    " in the array\n";

Let me emphasize that doing a hash lookup is good if you are planning on doing many lookups on the array. Also, it will only work if matching means that $foo eq $bar, or other requirements that can be met through normalization (like case insensitivity).