The =()= 'operator' should do:

my $count =()= 'abracadabra' =~ /br/g;
print "Found $count instances\n"
# prints Found 2 instances

[download]
Big Update:
Based on all the comments below, this might be handy for automatically generating the lookaheads that allow overlapping results based on a search string: 
sub countOverlappingMatches
{
  my $stringRef = shift;  #Likely to be huge, don't make a copy
  my $patternRef = shift;

  my $count =()= $$stringRef =~ /(?=$$patternRef)/g;
  return $count;
}

print countOverlappingMatches(\'abrabrabrabra', \'rabra');  # 3

[download]
Or extract the one active line that is left in there. 
for my $pattern (@listOfPatterns)
{
  my $count =()= $string =~ /(?=$pattern)/g;
  # Play with $count
}

[download]

In reply to Re: Find number of short words in long word by SuicideJunkie
in thread Find number of short words in long word by sedm1000

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