i was curious to know how complex regexes are handled so fast in this beautiful language. Well...this is what i could find

"To speed things up, during compilation stage, perl compiles the regexp into a compact sequence of opcodes that can often fit inside a processor cache. When the code is executed, these opcodes can then run at full throttle and search very quickly."

Any more in-depth information available on regex handling by the language?

Pardon me if i'm askin something irrelevant...But, isnt perl supposed to be doing interpretation and not compilation ?? Where does this compilation stage come from ? I know how a C program gets executed..precompiler, header files, C compiler and stuff like that...How does a perl program exactly get processed ?

Please share ur knowledge on this and enlighten this seeker!!