• Works with single-character strings. Both $f and $l are set to that character.
• For zero-length strings, both $f and $l are undefined.
• For zero-length strings, the whole expression returns false in scalar context.

my ($f,$l) = /^(.).*(?<=(.))/s;
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• Works with single-character strings. Both $f and $l are set to that character.
• For zero-length strings, both $f and $l are set to the zero-length string.
• Readable.

my $f = substr($_,  0, 1);
my $l = substr($_, -1, 1);
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