my $str = "perlmonks.org";

if ($str =~ /
    ^(.{1}) # first character
    .*      # the rest of the string
    (.+)$   # minus the last character
    /x) 
{
    print $1, ' ', $2, "\n";
}


##</code><code>##

my $f = substr($str, 0, 1);
my $l = substr($str, length($str)-1, 1);
print $f, ' ', $l;