Hrmmm ... it seems to work for me - I'm not entirely sure that I know what in context you are trying to use it ... Try this ... 
$var = "Sun Apr 1 10:27:03 CDT"; 
if ($var =~ /(\w{3}\s+\w{3}\s+\d+)/) { 
    print $1."\n";
};

[download]
This worked fine for me in my testing - Note the additional brackets around the regex to allow the result to be pulled from $1. If you are still having problems, post again with a bit more context as to where you are using this regex and someone with more experience than myself may be able to help further.

In reply to Re: Re: regex-matching the date by rob_au
in thread regex-matching the date by stuffy

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