use strict; my @re= qw| (.*)(\\d*) (.*)(\\d+) (.*?)(\\d*) (.*?)(\\d+) (.*)(\\d+)$ |; my $test ="I have 2 numbers: 53147"; print "Regex\t\tResult\n"; for (@re){ my $r=qr|$_|; print "$_\t'", join( "', '",$test=~/$r/),"'\n"; }