use Math::Combinatorics qw( permute ); my @charset = qw( a b c ); my ($valid) = map qr/^(?:$_)\z/, join '|', map quotemeta, map join('', @$_), permute @charset; my ($others) = map qr/[^$_]/, join '', map quotemeta, @charset; sub match { my $s = shift; $s =~ s/$others//g; return $s =~ $valid; }