Here's a simple modification to the example code that will show what the regex matched when you typed it in: 
#!/usr/bin/perl
while(<>) {
     chomp; # chomp so this next output is pretty.
            # newlines aren't discarded when you <>
     print "\"$1\" was matched out of \"$_\"" if m/(your_pattern)/;
}

[download]
Be sure to include the parenthesis around the entire regex that way it will save what it matches in $1.

Do recall that while the regex operators are greedy by default you can suffix them with ? and they'll go to nongreedy. An example: 
#!/usr/bin/perl

while(<>) {
        chomp;
        print "\"$1\" was matched out of \"$_\"\n" if m/(\w{5}?)/;
}

[download]
This will match "mywor" out of "myword"

Have fun regexing.

In reply to Re: RE: Quantifiers in regular expressions by ninja-joe
in thread Quantifiers in regular expressions by root

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.