use strict; 
use warnings; 
use 5.010; 
 
my @file_names = ( 
    '/usr/hello/world', 
    '/apps/tomcat-9999', 
    '/goodbye/world', 
); 
 
for (@file_names) {   #each file name gets assigned to $_ 
 
    if ( /\/apps(\/tomcat\-[0-9]*)/ ) {  #when no target specified, matches against $_ 
        say $1; 
    } 
 
} 
 
--output:-- 
/tomcat-9999