in reply to YAREGEX for all

I want to match for example any string that has /data or /tmp in it
"In it" or "starts with"?

Your code, and all the replies so far have used "starts with". If you really meant "in it" you need to drop the '^'s from any of the fine examples given so far

Unless I state otherwise, my code all runs with strict and warnings

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom