in reply to Opinions on usefulness of Perldoc

Either your version of the docs is old or you have to read a bit more. The docs of perl 5.6.0 state the following: 
m    Treat string as multiple lines.  
     That is, change "^" and
     "$" from matching the start or end of the string to
     matching the start or end of any line anywhere within
     the string.

s    Treat string as single line.  That is, change "." to
     match any character whatsoever, even a newline, which
     normally it would not match.

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and the next paragraph explains it even further.

I had problems with perldoc too, when I started to learn perl.
For a beginner the best she/he can do is buy the camel book.

But for a quick lookup of syntax the best is perldoc!

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Re: Re: Opinions on usefulness of Perldoc
by chipmunk (Parson) on Mar 28, 2001 at 09:21 UTC
    This text is also present in the 5.005_03 documentation.

    Even the documentation that came with perl5.004 includes those two paragraphs: 

        m     Treat string as multiple lines.  That is, change "^"
          and "$" from matching at only the very start or end of
          the string to the start or end of any line anywhere
          within the string,

    s     Treat string as single line.  That is, change "." to
          match any character whatsoever, even a newline, which
          it normally would not match.

    [download]
    Although it lacks the followup explanation of the interactions between /s, /m, and $*.

    The original poster must have a very old version of Perl. Complaining about a lack of documentation in such an old version of Perl is pointless. The problem was found and fixed years ago; the solution is to upgrade.

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