=over =item $MATCH =item $& X<$&> X<$MATCH> The string matched by the last successful pattern match (not counting any matches hidden within a BLOCK or C enclosed by the current BLOCK). The use of this variable anywhere in a program imposes a considerable performance penalty on all regular expression matches. To avoid this penalty, you can extract the same substring by using L. Starting with Perl 5.10, you can use the C

match flag and the C<${^MATCH}> variable to do the same thing for particular match operations. This variable is read-only and dynamically-scoped. Mnemonic: like C<&> in some editors. =back