#!perl -l @array = ('own', 'known', 'owl'); $q = 'unknown'; $longestmatching = ''; $longestn = 0; for $testword(@array) { $n = length($testword); next if $n <= $longestn; $substr = substr($q, length($q)-$n, $n); if($testword eq $substr) { $longestmatching = $testword; $longestn = $n; } } print $longestmatching;