I find myself writing perl member functions since there is no one built in…

sub member {
  my $elm = shift;
  my @lst = @_;

  for( my $i=0; $i < @lst; $i++) {
    return 1 if lc($elm) eq lc($lst[$i]);
  }

  return 0;
}

I like this one better... it reads better I think, but sadly I believe "foreach" will disappear in Perl 6 is it not?

sub member {
  my $elm = shift;
  my @lst = @_;

  foreach my $item (@lst) {
    return 1 if lc($elm) eq lc($item);
  }

  return 0;
}

Update: Now, if you use "use 5.010;" (which I strongly recommend that you do!) (of course running Perl 5.10 or higher) this can be done with the very cool "smart match" operator "~~".

$scalar ~~ @list; # Member with new smart match operator in Perl 5.10 or higher.