The @{[]} is a trick to force list context. The reason why list context is important is because of what the regex operator returns. In list context, the regex operator returns a list of what is matched. In scalar context, the regex operator returns whether or not it matched. (In theory, that should be the number of things matched as well, but I couldn't get it to work.)

So, by forcing list context, I get the list of things matched. Then, by converting the list to scalar context, I get the number of things in the list.

I'm sure there's a more elegant way than creating two array references on the fly, but that's what I had in 60sec of imperfect memory.

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In reply to Re3: Optimizing a string processing sub by dragonchild
in thread Optimizing a string processing sub by spurperl

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