i am reposting my question because i asked it very poorly. let me try again
imagine that i have a repeating string: 
foo(stuff)tarbarfoo(stuff)barfoo(stuff)tarbar

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where (stuff) is just random crap which changes on each repeat and where the alternation of tarbar vs bar is random.
suppose i want to extract each (stuff) from the string where stuff is only in the form foo(stuff)tarbar.
the example code, which is wrong, is the best i can do: 
my @array = ($string =~ /foo(.*?)tarbar/gso);

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however,this code goes wrong when foo(stuff)bar is found in the pattern because it matches foo(stuff)bar as "foo(stuffbarfoostuff)tarbar". in other words, it loads (stuff)barfoo(stuff) into the list but.. i only want stuffs from foo(stuff)tarbar
?help?

In reply to repeating patterns 2 by iradik

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