>perl -wMstrict -le "printf qq{'$_' } for get_IATA('bar'); ;; sub get_IATA { my ($airline) = @_; ;; my @data = qw(fee fie yyy barfly foe fum zzz barbell foo); ;; return map { $data[$_] =~ m{ \A \Q$airline\E }xms ? $data[$_ - 1] : () } 1 .. $#data ; } " 'yyy' 'zzz'