Just set a variable once and only once with the position the first time it matches.

 perl -e '$shoo=q!my name is prince!; while($shoo=~m/i/g){$rx = $+[0] 
+unless $rx } print $rx;

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Makes 
9

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But like Grandfather said, read perlvar.

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In reply to Re: position of first matching regex by InfiniteSilence
in thread position of first matching regex by techtaskers.com

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