#!/usr/bin/perl -l use warnings; use strict; my $input = join "|", qw/Monday Saturday Thursday/; "monday tuesday wednesday thursday friday saturday sunday" =~ m/\b($input)\b(?{ print "[$1]" })(*FAIL)/i; print join ' ', grep s/,//, split ' ', "monday tuesday wednesday thursday friday saturday sunday" =~ s/\b($input)\b\K/,/igr; #### [monday] [thursday] [saturday] monday thursday saturday