Synopsis

grep expr, list
grep {block} list
                  

Evaluates expr or blockin a Boolean context for each element of list, temporarily setting $_ to each element in turn. In list context, it returns a list of those elements for which the expression is true. Mostly used like Unix grep, in which expr is a search pattern, and list elements that match are returned. In scalar context, grep returns the number of times the expression was true.

For example, presuming @all_lines contains lines of code, this example weeds out comment lines:

@code_lines = grep !/^#/, @all_lines;