use strict; use warnings; use Data::Dump; my $a=qr/(?1)(?2)(3)(?4)/; my $parsing=parse_regex($a); # parse lines like ' 1: OPEN1 'C' (3)' my %named_captures = ($parsing =~ /^ \s{1,3}\d{1,3}:\s+ # token number OPEN(\d)[ ]'(\w+)' # group(nr) 'name' [ ]\(\d+\) # next token $ /xgm); my %index_named_capture = reverse %named_captures; dd \%index_named_capture; # OUTPUT { A => 4, C => 1, D => 2 } sub parse_regex { my $regex=shift; my $re_compilation; # First, save away STDERR open my $SAVEERR, ">&STDERR"; close STDERR; open STDERR, ">", \$re_compilation or die "What the hell?\n"; # Now dynamically recompile a new regex, saving debug_info to $re_compilation eval <<'_code_'; use re 'debug'; my $b=qr/$regex(?:)/; _code_ # Now close and restore STDERR to original condition. close STDERR; open STDERR, ">&", $SAVEERR; return $re_compilation; }