Re^5: Regular Expressions

It is documented. perldoc perlre

    The numbered match variables ($1, $2, $3, etc.) and the related
    punctuation set ($+, $&, $`, $', and $^N) are all dynamically scoped
    until the end of the enclosing block or until the next successful match,
    whichever comes first. (See "Compound Statements" in perlsyn.)

Comment on Re^5: Regular Expressions

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Re^6: Regular Expressions by Roy Johnson (Monsignor) on May 18, 2005 at 11:06 UTC
I read "the next successful match" as a separate Perl operation, not the internal iteration involved in matching (). There is, technically, nothing that dictates the order of internal matching, and if the overall match fails, $1 is not set to the last iteration of () that did match. Caution: Contents may have been coded under pressure.	[reply]