perl regex ( regular expression ) capturing using parentheses not printing $1 or $2 variables as expected

Question

OK I am learning how to use regex in perl and here is my code:

my $name = 'Tom Anderson';

if( $name =~ /(\w) (\w)/ )
{
    print "Good\n";
    print "$1 + $2";
}

outputs: good m + A

My understanding is that the regular expression will check $name as follows:

a word character followed by a space followed by another word character, this does not work 100%. if somebody enters another name, say a middle name the if statement still works. I only want two names and nothing else. Why is it succeeding when someone enters a third?

And the capturing using the parentheses when I print the $1 and $2 gives me m and A . Why is that? Why isn't the capturing giving me Tom and Anderson ?

Answer 1

Modify your regex:

$name =~ /(\w+) (\w+)/;

You can also anchor this regex to the start and end of the line:

$name =~ /^(\w+) (\w+)$/;

Hope this helps.