$ perl -we 'use strict;my @d=([0,"BE"],[3,"BUS"],[4, "BUS2"]);my @a=map($_ , split(/,/, "BUS2,BE") ) ; my @b=map { my $mapkey =$_; map { $d[$mapkey]->[1] =~ /$a[$_]/ ? $d[$mapkey] : () } 0..$#a } 0 ..$#d; use Data::Dumper;print Dumper(@d,@b)' $VAR1 = [ 0, 'BE' ]; $VAR2 = [ 3, 'BUS' ]; $VAR3 = [ 4, 'BUS2' ]; $VAR4 = $VAR1; $VAR5 = $VAR3; $ perl -we 'use strict;my @d=([0,"BE"],[3,"BUS"],[4, "BUS2"]);my @a=map($_ , split(/,/, "BUS2,BE") ) ; my @b=map { my $mapkey =$_; map { $d[$mapkey]->[1] =~ /$a[$_]/ ? [@{$d[$mapkey]}] : () } 0..$#a } 0 ..$#d; use Data::Dumper;print Dumper(@d,@b)' $VAR1 = [ 0, 'BE' ]; $VAR2 = [ 3, 'BUS' ]; $VAR3 = [ 4, 'BUS2' ]; $VAR4 = [ 0, 'BE' ]; $VAR5 = [ 4, 'BUS2' ];