The "e" being absent means "treat the replace expression as a double-quote string literal". 

$x = '10+4';
print( "$x" );  # 10+4, not 14

[download]

The "e" being present means "treat the replace expression as a Perl expression".
The Perl expression $1 evaluates to the value of $1, which is the string 10+4. 

$x = '10+4';
print( $x );  # 10+4, not 14

[download]

s/.../.../ee is an awful* way of saying s/.../eval .../e.
That means that not only is $1 treated as a Perl expression, so is the value returned by it. 

$x = '10+4';
print( eval $x );  # 14

[download]

* — In my opinion, something as dangerous as eval EXPR shouldn't be hidden as an simple little "e".

Update: Added illustrative code.

In reply to Re: /e in regexes by ikegami
in thread /e in regexes by waldner

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.