When you use a regular expression to match something (i.e.) $html =~m/<A HREF=\"(.*?)\"/g) the parenthesis around ->.*?<- capture the result of the match, and stores it in a special variable ->$n where n is a number indicating the parenthesis group.

Ok - let me try an example, it may be clearer 

$a="123abc345"
$a=~/123(.*?)345/;    # $1 is now equal to "abc"
$a=~/(123).*?(345)/;  # $1 is now "123" and $2 is "345"
$a=~/(xyz).*/;        # $1 is still "123" because there was 
                      # no match

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In reply to Re: How is this printing? by Sandy
in thread How is this printing? by awohld

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