Question

I have two arrays. I need to check and see if the elements of one appear in the other one.

Is there a more efficient way to do it than nested loops? I have a few thousand elements in each and need to run the program frequently.

Answer 1

Another way to do it is to use Array::Utils

use Array::Utils qw(:all);

my @a = qw( a b c d );
my @b = qw( c d e f );

# symmetric difference
my @diff = array_diff(@a, @b);

# intersection
my @isect = intersect(@a, @b);

# unique union
my @unique = unique(@a, @b);

# check if arrays contain same members
if ( !array_diff(@a, @b) ) {
        # do something
}

# get items from array @a that are not in array @b
my @minus = array_minus( @a, @b );