WOW, i'm sure i've never tried .*? in a regex, so if that was supposed to make sense, ignore me

This example should clearly illustrate the difference.

$_ = '<S>abc<E> <S>def<E>';

print("Greedy:\n");     print("  $1\n") while /<S>(.*)<E>/g;
print("Non-greedy:\n"); print("  $1\n") while /<S>(.*?)<E>/g;
[download]

Greedy:
  abc<E> <S>def
Non-greedy:
  abc
  def
[download]