Thanks for the reply!

So since eval is scoped to it's block, then am I correct in assuming I could do something along the lines of

eval {
      $my_text =~$regex # where $regex is m/ab|(cd)/ for example
      print $&;
      print $1, $2 # if defined
      }
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and then $& will hold the value of the match, and $1 and $2 will be accessable?

My understanding of this, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is that since eval is dynamically scoped, as long as my code is blocked between {} I'm okay.