$ perl -Mre=debug -e '/\d++/' Compiling REx "\d++" synthetic stclass "ANYOF[0-9][{unicode_all}]". Final program: 1: SUSPEND (7) 3: PLUS (5) 4: DIGIT (0) 5: SUCCEED (0) 6: TAIL (7) 7: END (0) stclass ANYOF[0-9][{unicode_all}] minlen 1 Freeing REx: "\d++" $ $ $ perl -Mre=debug -e '/\d+++/' Compiling REx "\d+++" Nested quantifiers in regex; marked by <-- HERE in m/\d+++ <-- HERE / at -e line 1. $