If you don't want to clobber the $testString contents, you could change as below, and add parentheses for clarity (not sure if that is returning in a list context, then assigning to a scalar, but I have seen that idiom many times before). 

my $l_count = ($testString =~ tr/(/(/);
my $r_count = ($testString =~ tr/)/)/);

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In reply to Re^2: IT's not counting... by mjscott2702
in thread IT's not counting... by Dwood

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