The pattern to be matched for is placed in between the // slashes of "m//" operator, if any additional options are to be placed it can be added after the second forward slash like "m/***/s".

Quoted strings, you may use other symbols in place of //. However, if you use //, you may omit the prefix m.In case of heavily slashed patterns one can use other symbols like "|".

    #! C:\programfiles\perl\bin\perl
    print "content-type: text/html\n\n";
    if ("Capable" =~ m/able/) 
     {
      print "match!\n";
     } 
    else 
     {
       print "no match!\n";
     }

     match! 

In the above example the pattern "able" is checked in the string "capable" to find whether its present, since it exists it returns the result "match!".

If an expression combined using the "=~" or "!~" binding operators,that expression is searched for in the pattern specified. If the binding operator is missing "=~" is assumed as the binding operator and "$" is taken as the expression to be searched for.

In scalar context, the binding operator "=~" returns a true value if the expression matches the pattern, an empty string if it returns a false."!~" simply inverts so that if the expression matches the pattern a false value is returned, a true value otherwise. Therefore, the following two expressions are equivalent:

     !($expression =~ m/pattern/)
     $expression !~ m/pattern/