c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le
"for my $record (qw(eks---wye  eks---wyyye)) {
   my ($x, $y) = $record =~ m{ \A (eks) .* (wye) \z }xms
     or die qq{malformed record '$record'};
   ;;
   print qq{record '$record': got '$x' '$y'};
   }
"
record 'eks---wye': got 'eks' 'wye'
malformed record 'eks---wyyye' at -e line 1.