Please show more of your code. The following works for me as you seem to want:

> perl -wle "$_='foo s f pl bar';print for /^.+(s m e f|s f pl|s f).+$
+/;"
s f pl

[download]

Most likely, $line does not contain what you think it contains, or maybe there is nothing after s f pl in your input string.

In reply to Re: match longest sequence in an "or" RE by Corion
in thread match longest sequence in an "or" RE by silentius

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