#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; # https://perlmonks.org/?node_id=11121442 use warnings; my @data = qw( 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ); my $target = 5; my $want = 0; for ( @data ) { $want-- > 0 and print "$_\n"; $_ == $target and $want = 3; }