That's the way I'd go too, but there's a little problem in your implementation: 

$ perl -le'print "abc def" =~ m[(^.{0,100})\s]'
abc

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Fix: 
m[(^.{0,100})(?!\S)]

[download]
m[(^.{0,100})(\s|$)]

[download]

In reply to Re^2: substr question by ikegami
in thread substr question by Anonymous Monk

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