From your examples and code fragment as much as from your description, it seems that you are looking for a 7-character string made of spaces followed by digits. Why not simply this: 
$num = $1 if length($string) == 7 and $string =~ /^\s*(\d+)$/;

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In reply to Re: Should be a simple spaces/digits regex....but I'm turning grey! by Laurent_R
in thread Should be a simple spaces/digits regex....but I'm turning grey! by viffer

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