For those of you (I admit I am one) who want to write s/this/that/sexgizmo, I'm sorry, I've not named this modifier /z. Rather, it is /G (unless Perl5-Porters says nay).

Here's how it's useful: 

while (/name:\s*(\w+)\s+age:\s*(\d+)/g) {
  my ($name, $age) = ($1,$2);
  # ...
}

### becomes

while (my ($name, $age) = /name:\s*(\w+)\s+age:\s*(\d+)/G) {
  # ...
}

[download]
What the /G modifier does is FORCE scalar context on a /.../g (global) match (so that pos() can be set accordingly), yet allow you to do this global match in list context. Now, if you've ever done a global match in list context, you know that it goes through all the matches. That means you can't write: 
while (my ($name, $age) = /name:\s*(\w+)\s+age:\s*(\d+)/g) {
  # ...
}

[download]
and expect it to work how you'd like. So, use /G there and your problems are solved.

Look for this new modifier in Perl 5.8!

_____________________________________________________
Jeff[japhy]Pinyan: Perl, regex, and perl hacker.
s++=END;++y(;-P)}y js++=;shajsj<++y(p-q)}?print:??;

In reply to New regex modifier! by japhy

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