OK, I've seen this go by (incorrectly) in the CB twice in a week, so I'm going to post a note on it so I can refer to it again and again.

After this code: 

my @x = "abcdefgh" =~ /(.)(.)/g;

[download]
the size of @+ is three elements, since it records only the most recent complete regex match, with ending position info for $&, $1, $2 (3 elements total). The values are (8, 7, 8).

The size of @x is indeed eight elements: the cumulative total of how many different memories matched for all matches (four matches, two apiece).

There. Let's please have no more advice in the CB that the way to get the "number of matches" is to look at @+. Thank you.

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

In reply to Size of @+ by merlyn

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.