$PREMATCH Question

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Can someone explain why the following:

echo alphabet | perl -e '$_=<STDIN>; if (m/pha/){print $PREMATCH, "\n"}'

yields "" instead of "al", as I expected?

Jonathan

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<font color='black' size='2' face='Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif'><font size="2">Can someone explain why the following:<br>
<br>
<font face="Courier New, Courier, mono">echo alphabet | perl -e '$_=&lt;STDIN&gt;; if (m/pha/){print $PREMATCH, "\n"}'</font><br>
<br>
yields "" instead of "al", as I expected?<br>
<br>
Jonathan<br>
</font>
</font>
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