in reply to Re^2: 'grouping' substrings?
in thread 'grouping' substrings?
That's not exactly true. $& is only inefficient if you have another regexp in your program which doesn't capture.
However, it's use is discouraged, since captures can perform the same task without the "effect at a distance" of $&.
In this case, just replace $& with $1, and you're set.
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