=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

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