#!/usr/bin/env perl use strict; use warnings; for my $word ('lama', 'aaron') { print "Word is $word\n"; print "without /g the regex becomes: "; my $r = $word; $r =~ s/(.*?)[ab](.*?)/$1\[ab\]$2/; print "$r\n"; print "with /g the regex becomes: "; $r = $word; $r =~ s/(.*?)[ab](.*?)/$1\[ab\]$2/g; print "$r\n"; }