Grep to find item in Perl array

Question

Every time I input something the code always tells me that it exists. But I know some of the inputs do not exist. What is wrong?

#!/usr/bin/perl

@array = <&g         


        

Answer 1

You seem to be using grep() like the Unix grep utility, which is wrong.

Perl's grep() in scalar context evaluates the expression for each element of a list and returns the number of times the expression was true. So when $match contains any "true" value, grep($match, @array) in scalar context will always return the number of elements in @array.

Instead, try using the pattern matching operator:

if (grep /$match/, @array) {
    print "found it\n";
}