c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le "my $s = '1234'; ;; my $n =()= $s =~ m{ (?= (\d\d)) }xmsg; print qq{total overlaps: $n}; ;; my @overlaps = $s =~ m{ (?= (\d\d)) }xmsg; printf 'overlaps:'; printf qq{ '$_'} for @overlaps; " total overlaps: 3 overlaps: '12' '23' '34'