$ perl -le' use Data::Dumper; my @arr1 = ( "John, ABC, 42", "Jane, XYZ, 34", "Jessica, GHI, 21" ); my @arr2 = ( "ABC", "XYZ" ); my $pattern = join "|", @arr2; my @arr3 = grep /$pattern/, @arr1; print Dumper \@arr3; ' $VAR1 = [ 'John, ABC, 42', 'Jane, XYZ, 34' ];