# One-liners; different than the other Monks, but not better.
my $pos = length( (split /\*/, $str)[0] );
my $pos = ( $str =~ m{ \A ( [^*]+ ) }x ) ? length($1) : 0;

##</code><code>##

# Get all the positions
my @positions;
push @positions, pos($str)-1 while $str =~ m{\*}g;
# Yields ( 4, 12 );

##</code><code>##

# Get all the asterisk-separated pieces
my @pieces = split "\*", $str;
my $pos = length $pieces[0];

##</code><code>##

# Just get the first piece
my ( $first_piece ) = ( $str =~ m{ \A ( [^*]* ) }x );
my $pos = length $first_piece;