Why are you using substitutions in a "count" script?
And then replacing whatever it was with itself?

Best to not modify your input and risk changing things while you're trying to count.
Note: See Perl Idioms Explained - my $count = () = /.../g 
use strict;
use warnings;

sub countIt
{
    my $data = shift;
    my $lines =()= $data =~ /\n/g;
    $lines++ unless $data =~ /\n$/;  # Last line may not have \n on it
    my $words =()= $data =~ /\w+/g;
    my $length = length($data);
    return ($lines, $words, $length);
}

print join ',', countIt("  Blah blah blah\nStuff-by:somebody");

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In reply to Re: two regexes in one function call by SuicideJunkie
in thread two regexes in one function call by bobr

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