>perl -wMstrict -le "my $s = 'xx FOR foo IN bar baz and FOR fee fie foe IN fum yy'; ;; my @for_in = $s =~ m{ FOR .* IN }xmsg; printf 'greedy: '; printf qq{'$_' } for @for_in; print ''; ;; printf 'lazy: '; @for_in = $s =~ m{ FOR .*? IN }xmsg; printf qq{'$_' } for @for_in; " greedy: 'FOR foo IN bar baz and FOR fee fie foe IN' lazy: 'FOR foo IN' 'FOR fee fie foe IN'