use Data::Dumper; my $re_bad = qr'@@([A-Z$#@_#]*) (?! [A-Za-z0-9$#@_] )'x; print Dumper $re_bad; print "\n\n\n"; print $re_bad; __END__ $VAR1 = qr/(?x-ism:@@([A-Z$#@_#]*) (?! [A-Za-z0-9$#@_] ))/; (?x-ism:@@([A-Z$#@_#]*) (?! [A-Za-z0-9$#@_] ))