if (1) {my $data = "this is a test"; my $expression_text = "(.*)es"; $data =~ $expression_text; say "1: $1"; $data =~ /$expression_text/; say "2: $1"; } if (1) {my $data = "this is a test"; my $expression_text = qr(es); $data =~ $expression_text; say "3: $data"; $data =~ s/$expression_text/dd/; say "4: $data"; }