To shed some light, tip #4 from the Basic debugging checklist (Data::Dumper): 

use warnings;
use strict;
use Data::Dumper;

"<div></div>" =~ /(?<start>.*?)((?!\< *\/[\w\d\-]+\>).)*/;
print Dumper(\%+);

__END__

$VAR1 = {
          'start' => ''
        };

[download]

Tip #9: YAPE::Regex::Explain 

----------------------------------------------------------------------
  .*?                      any character except \n (0 or more times
                           (matching the least amount possible))
----------------------------------------------------------------------

[download]

Your regex is telling it that nothing is a valid match. Have you considered using an HTML parser module from CPAN?

In reply to Re: regex catch pattern that doesn't contain a pattern by toolic
in thread regex catch pattern that doesn't contain a pattern by Anonymous Monk

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