Hi hippo,

I think you're thinking of s///g, since m// doesn't return a count (perlop):

$ perl -MData::Dumper -e 'print Dumper(       "abbbbc"=~/b/    )'
$VAR1 = 1;
$ perl -MData::Dumper -e 'print Dumper(       "abbbbc"=~/(b)/  )'
$VAR1 = 'b';
$ perl -MData::Dumper -e 'print Dumper(scalar("abbbbc"=~/b/   ))'
$VAR1 = 1;
$ perl -MData::Dumper -e 'print Dumper(scalar("abbbbc"=~/(b)/ ))'
$VAR1 = 1;
$ perl -MData::Dumper -e 'print Dumper(scalar("abbbbc"=~/b/g  ))'
$VAR1 = 1;
$ perl -MData::Dumper -e 'print Dumper(scalar("abbbbc"=~/(b)/g))'
$VAR1 = 1;
$ perl -MData::Dumper -e 'print Dumper(       "abbbbc"=~/b/g   )'
$VAR1 = 'b';
$VAR2 = 'b';
$VAR3 = 'b';
$VAR4 = 'b';
$ perl -MData::Dumper -e 'print Dumper(       "abbbbc"=~/(b)/g )'
$VAR1 = 'b';
$VAR2 = 'b';
$VAR3 = 'b';
$VAR4 = 'b';
[download]

To get a count you need to use the =()= trick (perlsecret):

$ perl -MData::Dumper -e 'print Dumper(scalar(()="abbbbc"=~/b/g))'
$VAR1 = 4;
$ perl -MData::Dumper -e 'print Dumper(scalar(()="abbbbc"=~/(b)/g))'
$VAR1 = 4;
[download]

Regards,
-- Hauke D