Win8 Strawberry 5.30.3.1 (64) Tue 01/12/2021 14:15:24 C:\@Work\Perl\monks >perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings # pm#11126809 use Regexp::Common qw(number); my $rx_lat_lon = qr{ (? lat %-10s lon %-10s \n", "'$lat_lon'", n_or_undef($lat), n_or_undef($lon); } else { print "'$lat_lon' FAILED to extract lat/lon \n"; } } sub n_or_undef { return defined $_[0] ? "'$_[0]'" : 'undef'; } ^Z '123,456' -> lat '123' lon '456' '12.345, -0' -> lat '12.345' lon '-0' ' -2. , 0.987' -> lat '-2.' lon '0.987' ' -.0 ,0.987 ' -> lat '-.0' lon '0.987' '0, -0' -> lat '0' lon '-0' '.0 ,-.0' -> lat '.0' lon '-.0' '0. , -0.' -> lat '0.' lon '-0.' ' 0.0 , -0.0 ' -> lat '0.0' lon '-0.0' '1, -1' -> lat '1' lon '-1' '.1 ,-.1' -> lat '.1' lon '-.1' '1. , -1.' -> lat '1.' lon '-1.' ' 1.2 , -1.2 ' -> lat '1.2' lon '-1.2' '123 456' FAILED to extract lat/lon '123' FAILED to extract lat/lon 'foo' FAILED to extract lat/lon '123,foo' FAILED to extract lat/lon 'foo,123' FAILED to extract lat/lon '1.234.5' FAILED to extract lat/lon