my $totmem = $OVERALL_MEM =~ /(\d+)/;

##</code><code>##

my ($totmem) = $OVERALL_MEM =~ /(\d+)/;

##</code><code>##

use warnings;
use strict;

my $OVERALL_MEM = 'MemTotal: 148704012 kB MemFree: 32165204 kB';
my ($totmem) = $OVERALL_MEM =~ /(\d+)/;
print "totmem is : $totmem";
print "\n";

__END__

totmem is : 148704012