in reply to @- Bug on the loose, lets isolate it

use strict; use warnings; my $string = "abc"; while( $string =~ /b/g ) { print $#-, "\n"; }
First Time - Output is: 808482816

Secind Time(and everytime after in the same command prompt session) - Output is: 262149

Win2K SP4
This is perl, v5.8.6 built for MSWin32-x86-multi-thread (with 3 registered patches, see perl -V for more detail) Copyright 1987-2004, Larry Wall Binary build 811 provided by ActiveState Corp. http://www.ActiveState. +com ActiveState is a division of Sophos. Built Dec 13 2004 09:52:01 Perl may be copied only under the terms of either the Artistic License + or the GNU General Public License, which may be found in the Perl 5 source ki +t. Complete documentation for Perl, including FAQ lists, should be found +on this system using `man perl' or `perldoc perl'. If you have access to + the Internet, point your browser at http://www.perl.org/, the Perl Home Pa +ge.