Perl matching operator Last Updated : 11 Jul, 2025 Comments Improve Suggest changes 5 Likes Like Report m operator in Perl is used to match a pattern within the given text. The string passed to m operator can be enclosed within any character which will be used as a delimiter to regular expressions. To print this matched pattern and the remaining string, m operator provides various operators which include $, which contains whatever the last grouping match matched. $& - contains the entire matched string $` - contains everything before the matched string $' - contains everything after the matched string Syntax: m/String/ Return: 0 on failure and 1 on success Example 1: Perl #!/usr/bin/perl -w # Text String $string = "Geeks for geeks is the best"; # Let us use m operator to search # "or g" $string =~ m/or g/; # Printing the String print "Before: $`\n"; print "Matched: $&\n"; print "After: $'\n"; Output: Before: Geeks f Matched: or g After: eeks is the best Example 2: Perl #!/usr/bin/perl -w # Text String $string = "Welcome to GeeksForGeeks"; # Let us use m operator to search # "to Ge" $string =~ m/to Ge/; # Printing the String print "Before: $`\n"; print "Matched: $&\n"; print "After: $'\n"; Output: Before: Welcome Matched: to Ge After: eksForGeeks Create Quiz Comment C Code_Mech Follow 5 Improve C Code_Mech Follow 5 Improve Article Tags : Perl Perl-String perl-operators Perl-String-Operators Explore BasicsPerl Programming Language2 min readIntroduction to Perl7 min readPerl Installation and Environment Setup in Windows, Linux, and MacOS3 min readPerl | Basic Syntax of a Perl Program10 min readHello World Program in Perl3 min readFundamentalsPerl | Data Types3 min readPerl | Boolean Values3 min readPerl | Operators | Set - 112 min readPerl | Operators | Set - 27 min readPerl | Variables4 min readPerl | Modules3 min readPackages in Perl4 min readControl FlowPerl | Decision Making (if, if-else, Nestedâif, if-elsif ladder, unless, unless-else, unless-elsif)6 min readPerl | Loops (for, foreach, while, do...while, until, Nested loops)7 min readPerl | given-when Statement4 min readPerl | goto statement3 min readArrays & ListsPerl | Arrays6 min readPerl | Array Slices3 min readPerl | Arrays (push, pop, shift, unshift)3 min readPerl List and its Types4 min readHashPerl Hash4 min readPerl | Hash Operations8 min readPerl | Multidimensional Hashes6 min readScalarsPerl | Scalars2 min readPerl | Comparing Scalars6 min readPerl | scalar keyword2 min readStringsPerl | Quoted, Interpolated and Escaped Strings4 min readPerl | String Operators4 min readPerl | String functions (length, lc, uc, index, rindex)4 min readOOP ConceptsObject Oriented Programming (OOPs) in Perl7 min readPerl | Classes in OOP6 min readPerl | Objects in OOPs6 min readPerl | Methods in OOPs5 min readPerl | Constructors and Destructors4 min readPerl | Method Overriding in OOPs6 min readPerl | Inheritance in OOPs7 min readPerl | Polymorphism in OOPs4 min readPerl | Encapsulation in OOPs6 min readRegular ExpressionsPerl | Regular Expressions2 min readPerl | Operators in Regular Expression4 min readPerl | Regex Character Classes3 min readPerl | Quantifiers in Regular Expression4 min readFile HandlingPerl | File Handling Introduction7 min readPerl | Opening and Reading a File4 min readPerl | Writing to a File3 min readPerl | Useful File-handling functions2 min read Like