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$MATCH
$&

The string matched by the last successful pattern match (not counting any matches hidden within a BLOCK or eval() enclosed by the current BLOCK). (Mnemonic: like & in some editors.) This variable is read-only.

The use of this variable anywhere in a program imposes a considerable performance penalty on all regular expression matches. See the Devel::SawAmpersand module from CPAN for more information.