#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Benchmark qw(:all);

my @choices = qw|a b c z m p t l c f g|;

my %choices = map{$_=>1}@choices;

my @cData = <DATA>;

timethese(50_000,{'Damn Slow'=>\&parseData1,
                'Much Better'=>\&parseData2});

sub parseData1 {
foreach (@cData){
chomp;
my @items = split/,/,$_;
#slow way, 
foreach my $item (@items){
if(grep {$item eq $_} @choices){
   #print qq|FOUND $item|;
 } 
}

}
}

sub parseData2 {
 foreach(@cData){
 chomp;
# foreach my $item (split/,/,$_){
my @items = split/,/,$_;
#slow way, 
foreach my $item (@items){
    if ($choices{$item}){
       #print qq|FOUND $item\n|;
     }
   }
  }

}

__DATA__
z,t,m,u,a,b,c
s,t,l,m,z,a,s
c,b,a,m,u,t,n
k,l,t,s,z,r,t