use strict; use warnings; use Test::More tests => 2; my $str = "/i/\N{LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH ACUTE}\N{LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH ACUTE}\N{LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH ACUTE}\N{LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH ACUTE}\N{LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH ACUTE}\N{LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH ACUTE}z/pl"; my $re = qr/^([\/\p{Word}]+)/; like $str, $re, 'Matched'; $str =~ $re; is $1, $str, 'Capture group 1';