... there were no warnings --- I'm only using perl from the command line .... I'm pretty much a complete perl noob.

Perl noobs in particular should always enable warnings and strictures. One way to do this from the command line is
    perl -wMstrict -e "perl code here ..." whatever else ...
(double-quotes for Windoze, single-quotes otherwise).

Give a man a fish:  <%-{-{-{-<

In reply to Re^3: Capturing groups where the ending is optional by AnomalousMonk
in thread Capturing groups where the ending is optional by cwm9

Title:
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