use strict;
my $str = '$str = "this is the code 004010H222A1 the rest is irrelevant";
$str = "the random number is 004010H223A2 ** anything else is irrelevant";
$str = "the last lottery number 004010H220A1 ~~ the rest is irrelevant";
$str = "yet another random sentence 004010H279A1 the rest is irrelevant";
$str = "any sentence before what i want 004010H279A1 the rest is irrelevant";
$str = "last winning number 004010H217~~~";
';
my $regex = qr~\b004010H2[127][02379](?:A[12])?\b~p;
if ( $str =~ /$regex/g ) {
print "Whole match is ${^MATCH} and its start/end positions can be obtained via \$-[0] and \$+[0]\n";
# print "Capture Group 1 is $1 and its start/end positions can be obtained via \$-[1] and \$+[1]\n";
# print "Capture Group 2 is $2 ... and so on\n";
}
# ${^POSTMATCH} and ${^PREMATCH} are also available with the use of '/p'
# Named capture groups can be called via $+{name}
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for Perl, please visit: http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html