#Greedy Matches!

$p="pattern";
#A greedy match matches the entire pattern
$p =~ /(.*)/;

print "1==>$1<==\n";

   
    
   #Greedy and non-greedy quantifiers!
 
#!usr/bin/perl


use strict;
use warnings;

my $string1 = "there  here  There  here there Here";
my $string2 = $string1;

print "$string1\n";
$string1 =~ s/N.*here\.//;
print "$string1\n";
print "$string2\n";
$string2 =~ s/N.*?here\.//;
print "$string2\n\n";

   
    
    
  #Greedy searches!  

greedy means that each pattern will try to match as much as it can. 
The pattern /a.*a/ matches as many characters as possible between the first a and the last a. 
If your text string is ababacdea, /a.*a/ will match the whole string.
You can control the greediness using a question mark. 
The question mark matches a minimum number of times. 
The following table shows how to minimize the greediness. 

Syntax         Means
*?             Match zero or more times, minimal number of times
+?             Match one or more times, minimal number of times
??             Match zero or one time, minimal number of times
{num}?         Match exactly num times, minimal number of times
{num,}?        Match at least num times, minimal number of times
{num,max}?     Match at least num but not more than max times, minimal number of times

   
    
    #The Greedy Metacharacters!

Metacharacter   What It Matches
x?              Matches 0 or 1 occurrences of x
(xyz)?          Matches 0 or 1 occurrences of pattern xyz
x*              Matches 0 or more occurrences of x
(xyz)*          Matches 0 or more occurrences of pattern xyz
x+              Matches 1 or more occurrences of x
(xyz)+          Matches 1 or more occurrences of pattern xyz
x{m,n}          Matches at least m occurrences of x and no more than n occurrences of x

   
    
   #The greedy quantifier!

$string="ABCdefghiCxyzwerC YOU!";
$string=~s/.*C/HEY/;
print "$string", "\n";

   
    
    
    #Turning Off Greediness!

    
Metacharacter   What It Matches
x??             Matches 0 or 1 occurrences of x
(xyz)??         Matches 0 or 1 occurrences of pattern xyz
x*?             Matches 0 or more occurrences of x
(xyz)*?         Matches 0 or more occurrences of pattern xyz
x+?             Matches 1 or more occurrences of x
(xyz)+?         Matches 1 or more occurrences of pattern xyz
x{m,n}?         Matches at least m occurrences of x and no more than n occurrences of x
x{m}?           Matches at least m occurrences of x
x{m,}?          Matches at least m times