use Benchmark; my $val = " Smart Way "; timethese(1000000, { regex1 => sub { my $tmp = $val; $tmp =~ s/^\s*(.*?)\s*$/$1/g; }, regex2 => sub { my $tmp = $val; $tmp =~ s/^\s+//; $tmp =~ s/\s+$//; } }); __OUTPUT__ Benchmark: timing 1000000 iterations of regex1, regex2... regex1: 8 wallclock secs ( 8.10 usr + 0.00 sys = 8.10 CPU) @ 123426.31/s (n=1000000) regex2: 2 wallclock secs ( 1.96 usr + 0.00 sys = 1.96 CPU) @ 509164.97/s (n=1000000)