The original code didn't use say, though. It used something that placed the expression scalar context, and there it makes a difference. 

>perl -E"say(scalar( 'abc234def' =~ /(\d+)/ ));"
1

>perl -E"say(scalar( ('abc234def' =~ /(\d+)/)[0] ));"
234

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In reply to Re^3: Questions on sort by ikegami
in thread Questions on sort by jiashiun

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