I've been known to rant about that warning a time or two, so I'd suggest just turning it off. Since the override is lexically scoped, this won't affect other parts of your code.... 
$b = "c";
{
 no warnings 'uninitialized';     # turn off bogus warning for this bl
+ock
 $b =~ s/^(?:a(\w))?(\w)$/$1:$2/; # voilla, no warning!!
}

[download]

-Blake

In reply to Re: Uninitialized $1 in s/// by blakem
in thread Uninitialized $1 in s/// by dmitri

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