in reply to Regular Expressions-Finding info between semicolons

#!/usr/bin/perl # http://perlmonks.org/?node_id=1175635 use strict; use warnings; my @testcases = ( [ 'W', ';A-B;C-D;E-F;G-H;J-K;L-M;N-P;R-S;T-W;Y-Z;' ], [ 'L', ';A-B-C-D;E-F-G-H;J-K-L-M;N-P-R-S;T-W-Y-Z;' ], [ 'B', ';A-B;C-D;E-F;G-H;J-K;L-M;N-P;R-S;T-W;Y-Z;' ], ); for ( @testcases ) { my ( $letter, $string ) = @$_; $string =~ /.*;(.*?$letter.*?);/ and print "$letter $1\n"; }