in reply to Regex boundary match
Well, maybe not in this case, but this ([^\-]|$) will consume a position.
This can become an issue if you start combining with following matches.
That's why I recommended a "lookahead assertion" which is zero width.
Cheers Rolf (addicted to the Perl Programming Language :) Wikisyntax for the Monastery FootballPerl is like chess, only without the dice