c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le "use constant K => 234_565; ;; my $s = 'xxx' . 'a' x K . 'yyy'; print substr $s, 0, 10; print substr $s, -10; print length $s; ;; use constant MAX => 32_760; ;; use integer; my $n = K / MAX; print $n; my $m = K % MAX; print $m; ;; my ($t) = $s =~ m{ xxx ((?: .{${ \MAX }}){$n} .{$m}) yyy }xms; print substr $t, 0, 10; print substr $t, -10; print length $t; " xxxaaaaaaa aaaaaaayyy 234571 7 5245 aaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaa 234565