i did try this, which doesn't work: 
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;
use diagnostics;
undef $/;

my $file = "test.txt";
open INFILE, "<$file" or die "cant open file: $!\n";
my @arr = <INFILE>;
close INFILE;
foreach my $filepieces (@arr) {
    my @matches = $1 if ($filepieces =~ /alpha\|(.*?)\|/smg);
    if(@matches) {
        foreach my $match (@matches) {
            print "match: $match\n";
        }
    }
}

[download]
and the file: 
alpha|beta|alpha|theta|alpha|gamma|alpha|episilon

[download]
that's just an example, splitting on the pipe isn't an option, b/c my real files to parse don't look like that

In reply to Re^2: getting a regex to return an array of matches? by rmexico
in thread getting a regex to return an array of matches? by rmexico

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