foreach (@pairs) {
    s/\s*(.*?)\s*/$1/;
    .
    .
    .
}
[download]

push @strings, 'nospace';
push @strings, 'trailingspace      ';
push @strings, '      leadingspace';
push @strings, 'internal space';
push @strings, '    surroundedbyspace    ';
push @strings, '    spaces every    where    ';

for my $wtf (@strings)
{
    print "Before: '$wtf'\n";
    $wtf =~ s/\s*(.*?)\s*/$1/;
    print "After: '$wtf'\n\n";
}
[download]

Which, output:

Before: 'nospace'
After: 'nospace'

Before: 'trailingspace      '
After: 'trailingspace      '

Before: '      leadingspace'
After: 'leadingspace'

Before: 'internal space'
After: 'internal space'

Before: '    surroundedbyspace    '
After: 'surroundedbyspace    '

Before: '    spaces every    where    '
After: 'spaces every    where    '
[download]

Which is, basically, what I expected. The regex is only replacing leading spaces... The things is, this code is located in CGI::Cookie in the raw_fetch subroutine (view the source here). Here is the code in the subroutine:

# Fetch a list of cookies from the environment or the incoming headers
+ and
# return as a hash. The cookie values are not unescaped or altered in 
+any way.
 sub raw_fetch {
   my $class = shift;
   my $raw_cookie = get_raw_cookie(@_) or return;
   my %results;
   my($key,$value);
   
   my(@pairs) = split("; ?",$raw_cookie);
   foreach (@pairs) {
     s/\s*(.*?)\s*/$1/;
     if (/^([^=]+)=(.*)/) {
       $key = $1;
       $value = $2;
     }
     else {
       $key = $_;
       $value = '';
     }
     $results{$key} = $value;
   }
   return \%results unless wantarray;
   return %results;
}
[download]

So, is this regex doing something that I am missing, or is it a broken regex that was placed in a seldom-used subroutine that no one has bother correcting?
Can anyone shed some light...

enoch

update: Fixed a typo.