Hello monks,

I'm having a slight failure to understand regex. The answer i'm getting is not exactly what i'm thinking it should be. So here the thing 
#!/usr/bin/perl
#
# pattern match testing
#
use warnings;
use strict;
# use re 'debug';
my $str = 'triple hybrid: dehyd: triple hybrid: dehydrofolate reductas
+e reconstruction ;MI:0111';

$str =~ s/(.+): \1/$1/;
print "'$1'\n$str\n";

[download]
Now that code prints out what i expect it to:
'triple hybrid: dehyd'
triple hybrid: dehydrofolate reductase reconstruction ;MI:0111

But with this s/([()\w\s-]+): \1/$1/; output somehow is:
'd'
triple hybridehyd: triple hybrid: dehydrofolate reductase reconstruction ;MI:0111

Why with a given set of optional values it matches only 'd' but . matches all from beginning? If I add achoring '^' then the second one fails.

Ps. I'm going to go for a week long holiday from ~2-3 hours from now on, so I won't be able to comment after that. But I will read/comment after next week :).

In reply to Understanding regex by Hena

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