How can I check if a string is in an array without iterating over the elements?

Question

Is there a way of checking if a string exists in an array of strings - without iterating through the array?

For example, given the script below, how I can correctly impl

Answer 1

#!/bin/bash

test="name"

array=('hello' 'world' 'my' 'yourname' 'name' 'is' 'perseus')
nelem=${#array[@]}
[[ "${array[0]} " =~ "$test " ]] || 
[[ "${array[@]:1:$((nelem-1))}" =~ " $test " ]] || 
[[ " ${array[$((nelem-1))]}" =~ " $test" ]] && 
echo "found $test" || echo "$test not found"

Just treat the expanded array as a string and check for a substring, but to isolate the first and last element to ensure they are not matched as part of a lesser-included substring, they must be tested separately.