$foo = "abchelloxyz";
$foo =~ s/abc([\w]+)xyz/$1/;
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Do keep in mind that wil's example will make foo equal to the characters between abc and xyz. i.e. $foo == "hello" if you are trying to extract to another variable you need to do something more like this.


$foo = "abchelloxyz";
$foo =~ /abc([\w]+)xyz/;
$bar = $1;
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the value of $foo is unchanged. ---Mogaka is good

$foo =~ /abc([\w]+)xyz/;
$bar = $1;
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or in one line:

($bar) = /abc([\w]+)xyz/;
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From perlop:

If the /g option is not used, m// in a list
context returns a list consisting of the
subexpressions matched by the parentheses
in the pattern, i.e., ($1, $2, $3...). (Note that here
$1 etc. are also set, and that this differs from
Perl 4's behavior.)  When there are no parentheses
in the pattern, the return value is the list (1)
for success.  With or without parentheses, an
empty list is returned upon failure.
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-- Hofmator

en passant:

$foo='abchelloxyz';
($bar=$foo)=~s/abc(\w+)xyz/\1/;
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#!/usr/bin/perl -wd

use strict;
use Benchmark;

timethese( 50000, {
   'regex'     => sub { &regex(); },
   'ind_sub'   => sub { &ind_sub(); },
   }
);

sub regex {
   $_ = "abchelloxyz";
   m/abc(.*?)xyz/;
   my $bar = $1;
}

sub ind_sub {
   $_ = "abchelloxyz";
   my $x = index( $_, "abc") + 3;
   my $y = index( $_, "xyz");
   my $bar = substr( $_, $x, $y - $x);
}
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-derby

$value =~ /$header:_:(.*?):_:/;
$data = $1;
push(@rows, $data);
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Then why not just push(@rows, $value =~ /$header:_:(.*?):_:/);