You need list context to assign the capture(s) — note the parentheses around $ports: 

my ($ports) = $args =~ m/-p\s+([-\d]+)/;

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Otherwise (in scalar context), you'd get whether the regex matched (thus the 1).

In reply to Re^3: find element in array, then advance to next element by almut
in thread find element in array, then advance to next element by kathys39

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