If $pattern is a literal string to find in $string, then parv is correct. Use index.

If $pattern is really a pattern and not a literal string to find in $string, you can do something like this: 

my $string="/ae/gowtham_langTests/hpgl2/hpgl2/linepath/masters/top2bot
+tom/top2bottom9/top2bott om9.plt1.tiff ";
my $pattern = "/hpgl2/";
if ( $string =~ /\A(.*?)$pattern/ ) {
    print "place: ", length $1, "\n";
}
print "index: ", index( $string, $pattern ), "\n";
__END__
place: 21
index: 21

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In reply to Re: First occurance in a string by kyle
in thread First occurance in a string by anand_perl

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