As mentioned earlier, the question is ambiguous and so is subject to interpretation. (It also smells of homework but its interesting so I will let it pass.)

The question could be interpreted as follows:

1. Anchor the pattern at the beginning of the string in which case kvale has provided the answer earlier.
2. Start the matching process at the beginning of the string and find any part of the string that is bounded by x that such that it contains the desired number (n) of x's.

The second alternative is more difficult than it appears. Firstly, there is a special case where n is 1 or 2. Secondly, the first x to be matched can appear within a match that has already taken place.

In order to demonstrate this problem I have added an extra x to the beginning of the data and I am looking for 4 x's. The shortest string containing four x's is xxx.x but the first match that the regex finds lands in the middle of this and so the next match misses the shortest string.

my $foo = "x.....xxx.x.....x......xxx...xx...x...xxx";

my @array =
$foo =~ 
/(                              # capture in $1
[x]                             # match an opening x
        (?:[^x]*?[x][^x]*?)     # match an x surrounded by some non-x
        {2}                     # match n-2 times
[x]                             # match a closing x
)/gx;
#(?{push @array, $1})            # keep the match
#$                               # match the end of the string to forc
+e back-tracking

print "$_\n" foreach (sort {length $a <=> length $b} @array);

__END__
x.....xxx
x...xx...x
x.....x......xx
[download]

In order to resolve this situation, you can use backtracking in the regex. The following regex embeds code to store the matches. In this way, all of the possible matches are found (albeit a number of times).

my $foo = "x.....xxx.x.....x......xxx...xx...x...xxx";

my @array;
$foo =~ 
/(                              # capture in $1
[x]                             # match an opening x
        (?:[^x]*?[x][^x]*?)     # match an x surrounded by some non-x
        {2}                     # match n-2 times
[x]                             # match a closing x
)
(?{push @array, $1})            # keep the match
$                               # match the end of the string to force
+ back-tracking
/x;
print "$_\n" foreach (sort {length $a <=> length $b} @array);

__END__
xxx.x
xxx...x
xx...xx
xx...xx
xx...xx
xx...xx
x...xxx
x.....xxx
xx.x.....x
xx.x.....x
x......xxx
x...xx...x
xx...x...x
xx...x...x
xx...x...x
xx...x...x
x...x...xx
x...x...xx
x...x...xx
x...x...xx
x.....x......xx
x.....x......xx
x.....x......xx
x.....x......xx
x.....x......xx
x.....x......xx
x.....x......xx
x.x.....x......x
x.x.....x......x
x.x.....x......x
x.x.....x......x
x.x.....x......x
x.x.....x......x
[download]

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