Hello ysreenu, and welcome to the Monastery!

First, when scalar is applied to an array, it returns the number of elements in the array. But when scalar is applied to a list, it returns the last element in that list:

16:12 >perl -wE "say scalar('a', 'e', 'i', 'o', 'u');"
Useless use of a constant ("a") in void context at -e line 1.
Useless use of a constant ("e") in void context at -e line 1.
Useless use of a constant ("i") in void context at -e line 1.
Useless use of a constant ("o") in void context at -e line 1.
u
16:13 >

[download]

Second, calling m/.../g in scalar context finds one match only, and advances the pointer to the next position in the string following the last match. So your two calls in Phase-2 eat up the first two occurrences of “ink” in the string. Then in Phase-3, since the pointer has not been reset, the call to m/.../g in list context finds only the remaining matches, which is why you get 4 and not 6.

Update: See “Global matching” in Using regular expressions in Perl.

Hope that helps,

Athanasius <°(((>< contra mundum Iustus alius egestas vitae, eros Piratica,

In reply to Re: Match operator giving unexpected output by Athanasius
in thread Match operator giving unexpected output by ysreenu

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