my $a = 'Perl'; my $b =~ s/pe/ea/ir;
% perl -MData::Dumper=Dumper -e 'my $a = 'Perl'; my $b =~ s/pe/ea/ir; print Dumper $b;' $VAR1 = undef;
my $a = 'Perl'; my $b = $a =~ s/pe/ea/ir;
I'm surprised there's no example in perlre(1); perhaps I can get that corrected.