I'm assuming your second example of $a is a typo and should have read $a = '/export/home/test'. If you want to chop out great specifically, you can do: 
$a =~ s/\/great$//;

[download]
If you want to generically remove the last element, and save it to $bar, you can do: 
$a =~ s/(\/.*)$//;
$bar = $1;

[download]
I hope this helps.

In reply to Re: help on reg ex by Improv
in thread help on reg ex by Anonymous Monk

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