#!/usr/local/bin/perl my $a = "this is a test [[1]] [[ a ]] [[ abd ]] [[\%object,key]]"; $a =~ m/(\[\[.*?\]\])/; print "$_, $1 , $2 , $3 , $4 , $+ \n"; #### "1, [[1]] , [[ a ]] , [[ abd ]] , [[\%object,key]] , 4 \n";