my $str = "123 foo 456 foo 789 foo 10";

# will match everything up to the last 'foo'
print "dot star greedy:     ", $str =~ /(.*)foo/, $/;

# will match everything up to the first 'foo'
print "dot star non-greedy: ", $str =~ /(.*?)foo/, $/;

__output__

dot star greedy:     123 foo 456 foo 789 
dot star non-greedy: 123