my $ip = '24.56.102.10'; my %ours = ( 24.56.102.10 => 'ns1.t', ); if ( $ours{$ip} ) { print "Its there\n"; } else { print "Its not there\n"; } #### $ours{$v} = $k while ( my($k, $v) = each %ours); #### #... yada yada ... my %ips = ( ours => { 24.56.102.10 => 'ns1.t', }, theirs => { 68.168.192.17 => 'ns1.a', }, ); my @recs = nslookup( type => "NS", domain => $domain, ); ours(\%ips, \@recs); # .. yada yada .. sub ours { my($ip, $recs) = @_; for ( @$recs ) { if ( $ip->{ours}{$_} ) { print OUT "$_\n"; } elsif ( $ip->{theirs}{$_} ) { print OUT1 "$_\n"; } else { # do we care about this case? } } }