use strict;
my $str = '<foo><some special chars>!@#$%^&*</foo> sure, why not
<foo>Lorem</foo>
<foo>ipsum</foo>
<foo>sit</foo>
<foo>dolor</foo>
<foo>amet</foo>
<bar>elm stuff</bar>
more stuff for you <foo> something </foo> and even more stuff <foo>yes</foo>
Let\'s deal with nesting: <foo> some text <foo> a child foo!</foo> let\'s close the parent</foo>';
my $regex = qr/<foo>(.*?)<\/foo>/mp;
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