note muba <blockquote><c>my $string = "(\d+)\:(\d+) (\d+)\/(\d+)\/(\d+)";</c></blockquote> <p>What is the purpose of this line? Does it really help you to do what you want to? What happens if you leave it out entirely?</p> <p>s/// works in place (that is, on the variable it is bound to). What happens if you rewrite it as this:</p> <c> if ($_ =~ m/(\d+)\:(\d+) (\d+)\/(\d+)\/(\d+)/ ){ $_ =~ s/ / /; } </c> <p>And of course, m// and s/// works on $_ in lieu of any other variable, so you could even just go:</p> <c> if (m/(\d+)\:(\d+) (\d+)\/(\d+)\/(\d+)/ ){ s/ / /; } </c> <p>Which could be shortend to:</p> <c> s/ / / if m/(\d+)\:(\d+) (\d+)\/(\d+)\/(\d+)/; </c> <p>Those parens serve no purpose, as you're seemingly not capturing anything, so we can be even more briefer without harming readability:</p> <c> s/ / / if m/\d+\:\d+ \d+\/\d+\/\d+/; </c> 1005011 1005018