my($first, $second, $third) = $text =~ /(\([a-z]*\))(?:\s|_|$)/gi;
print "$first and $second and $third\n";

##</code><code>##

no warnings 'uninitialized';
my $count = $text =~ s/(\([a-z]*\))(?:\s|_|$)/$1$2/gi;
print $count;
use warnings;

##</code><code>##

(network) and (test) and (ifcfg)
3