That's because you are using parenthesis. Using parens mays you're paying "the penalty" (for that match) anyway. So, you get ${^PREMATCH}, ${^MATCH}, and ${^POSTMATCH} for "free".

Try running your match without parens, and see the difference.

In reply to Re: ${^MATCH} regex special variable(s) and /p regex modifier by JavaFan
in thread ${^MATCH} regex special variable(s) and /p regex modifier by AnomalousMonk

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