The code: #!/usr/bin/perl my $string=string\nstring2\nstring3; print $string\n—–\n; $string=~s/^.*$/_/; print $string\n—–\n; The Output: string string2

Question

Asked: June 13, 20262026-06-13T08:53:01+00:00 2026-06-13T08:53:01+00:00

The code:

#!/usr/bin/perl
my $string="string\nstring2\nstring3";
print "$string\n-----\n";
$string=~s/^.*$/_/;
print "$string\n-----\n";

The Output:

string
string2
string3
-----
string
string2
string3
-----

Expected Outputs:

1:

string
string2
string3
-----
_
-----

2:

string
string2
string3
-----
_
string2
string3
-----

3: (like /m modifer):

string
string2
string3
-----
_
_
_
-----

The question: Why without /m ^..$ broke things ? What i missed in regex docs ?

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Editorial Team · Answer 1 · 2026-06-13T08:53:02+00:00

Editorial Team

/s causes . to match newlines.
/m causes ^ and $ to match start and end of line rather than start and end of input.
/g causes all matches to be replaced.

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