c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le "my $string = 'Img%04d.png'; ;; my $d_format = my ($prefix, $fixed, $width, $ext) = $string =~ m{ \A (\w+) % (0?) (\d+) d [.] (\w+) \z }xms; ;; die 'no format' unless $d_format; $fixed = length $fixed ? 1 : ''; ;; print qq{string: '$string'}; print qq{prefix: '$prefix'}; print qq{ fixed: '$fixed'}; print qq{ width: '$width'}; print qq{ ext: '$ext'}; " string: 'Img%04d.png' prefix: 'Img' fixed: '1' width: '4' ext: 'png'