sub find_year { my( $str ) = @_; my $year; $year = $1 if( $str =~ /\b((?:19|20)\d\d)\b/ ); return $year } for my $title ( "Let's party like it's 1999", "If 6 was 9", "If 6 was 9", "Summer of 69", "Disco 2000", ) { print $title , " => ", find_year($title), "\n"; }