You would see similar behavior if you try this: 
my $sentence = "I fear that i will be extinct after 1000 or 2000 years
+";

if($sentence =~ /(\d+)/)

{

print "That said '$1' years.\n";

}

[download]
Since Perl is stopping at the first successful match, you'll only get the first number. Since the empty string is a successful match for \d*, that's what you're getting :)

In reply to Re^2: question about the star(*) quantifier by wojtyk
in thread question about the star(*) quantifier by snowsky

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