c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le
"my $timeLimit =
   'xxx endTime=\"2016-12-28T23:59:59\" startTime=\"2016-09-30T00:00:00\" yyy';
 ;;
 $timeLimit =~ m/startTime=\"(.*?)\"/g;
 my $startTime = $1;
 print 'match position after 1st match: ', pos $timeLimit;
 ;;
 my $endTime;
 if ($timeLimit =~ m/endTime/)
 {
     $timeLimit =~ m/endTime=\"(.*?)\"/g;
     $endTime = $1;
     print 'match position after 2nd match: ', pos $timeLimit;
 }
 print \"[$startTime],[$endTime]\n\";
"
match position after 1st match: 65
Use of uninitialized value in print at -e line 1.
match position after 2nd match:
Use of uninitialized value $endTime in concatenation (.) or string at -e line 1.
[2016-09-30T00:00:00],[]

##</code><code>##

c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le
"my $timeLimit =
   'xxx endTime=\"2016-12-28T23:59:59\" startTime=\"2016-09-30T00:00:00\" yyy';
 ;;
 my $got_start = my ($start) = $timeLimit =~ m/startTime=\"(.*?)\"/;
 my $got_end   = my ($end)   = $timeLimit =~ m/endTime=\"(.*?)\"/;
 ;;
 print qq{start [$start], end [$end]} if $got_start and $got_end;
"
start [2016-09-30T00:00:00], end [2016-12-28T23:59:59]