Perl RegExp question

[John Bokma]

I have developed a habit of using the old C-like tools, like substr,
index, etc., when I can, because they seem to lie closer at hand than
an RE. I'm pretty proficient at what I do, so something must work.

Nothing wrong with that. If I need the last 4 characters, or the first
3, I use substr. If I need to test if a string has a substring, I use
index.