in reply to Prog. Perl 3rd Ed. Regex Question

You're confused about \b. It is an anchor. It matches a POSITION, it does not actually match any CHARACTERS.
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Jeff[japhy]Pinyan: Perl, regex, and perl hacker, who'd like a job (NYC-area)
s++=END;++y(;-P)}y js++=;shajsj<++y(p-q)}?print:??;