Ever wanted to know what a regex looked like? You'll need perl compiled with the DEBUGGING flag for this one:

        > perl -Dr -e '/^pe(a)*rl$/i'
        Compiling REx `^pe(a)*rl$'
        size 17 first at 2
        rarest char
         at 0
           1: BOL(2)
           2: EXACTF <pe>(4)
           4: CURLYN[1] {0,32767}(14)
           6:   NOTHING(8)
           8:   EXACTF <a>(0)
          12:   WHILEM(0)
          13: NOTHING(14)
          14: EXACTF <rl>(16)
          16: EOL(17)
          17: END(0)
        floating `'$ at 4..2147483647 (checking floating) stclass `EXACTF <pe>'
anchored(BOL) minlen 4
        Omitting $` $& $' support.

        EXECUTING...

        Freeing REx: `^pe(a)*rl$'