The alarm does go of for the example you gave me, however, a regex given by leronim below : 
 
my $re = ('a*' x80).'(b|c)';
my $str = "a" x 80;
$str =~ /$re/;

[download]
Never sets off the alarm. Any idea why that is the case. Thanks.

In reply to Re^2: Timeout alarm for regex by Otogi
in thread Timeout alarm for regex by Otogi

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