One final thought :)

There is another way of doing "named captures", without using the construct or %+ or %-. It's a bit um ... obscure, and may be slower, but it might allow you to workaround the problem in the interim without radically altering your existing code.

#! perl -slw
use strict;
use re qw[ eval ];
use Data::Dump qw[ pp ];


my $reY =  '(\d{4})(?{ $match{ y }  = $^N })';;
my $reM =  '(\d{2})(?{ $match{ m }  = $^N })';;
my $reD =  '(\d{2})(?{ $match{ d }  = $^N })';;
my $reH =  '(\d{2})(?{ $match{ h }  = $^N })';;
my $reMN = '(\d{2})(?{ $match{ mn } = $^N })';;
my $reS =  '(\d{2})(?{ $match{ s }  = $^N })';;

my $reDT = "$reY-$reM-$reD\\s+$reH:$reMN:$reS";

our %match = ();

'2010-10-06 20:55:31' =~ $reDT;

pp \%match;;

__END__
c:\test>junk57.pl
{ d => "06", h => 20, "m" => 10, mn => 55, "s" => 31, "y" => 2010 }
[download]

Or better still, cut out the middleman and put the captures straight into the names variables themselves (I wish named captures worked this way full stop) :

#! perl -slw
use strict;
use re qw[ eval ];
use Data::Dump qw[ pp ];


my $reY =  '(\d{4})(?{ $y  = $^N })';;
my $reM =  '(\d{2})(?{ $m  = $^N })';;
my $reD =  '(\d{2})(?{ $d  = $^N })';;
my $reH =  '(\d{2})(?{ $h  = $^N })';;
my $reMN = '(\d{2})(?{ $mn = $^N })';;
my $reS =  '(\d{2})(?{ $s  = $^N })';;

my $reDT = "$reY-$reM-$reD\\s+$reH:$reMN:$reS";

local our( $y, $m, $d, $h, $mn, $s );

'2010-10-06 20:55:31' =~ $reDT;

print "$y, $m, $d, $h, $mn, $s";

__END__
c:\test>junk57.pl
2010, 10, 06, 20, 55, 31
[download]

Note: The variables referenced inside the (?{ code }) blocks have to be global, but judicious use of local and our makes it reasonably convenient. Also, I've had iffy results using qr// with this. Never really understood why.

I realise that it would be considerable work to modify all your regex generators to use this method, but hey!

You can always knock up a few regex to do it for you ;)