johngg@shiraz:~ > perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings -MData::Dumper -E ' my $idStr = q{381980767204}; my %idLookup = map { $_ => 1 } unpack q{(a4)*}, $idStr; print Data::Dumper->Dumpxs( [ \ %idLookup ], [ qw{ *idLookup } ] ); say qq{ID $_ }, exists $idLookup{ $_ } ? q{found} : q{not found} for qw{ 7204 6720 };' %idLookup = ( '8076' => 1, '7204' => 1, '3819' => 1 ); ID 7204 found ID 6720 not found