X-Git-Url: https://perl5.git.perl.org/perl5.git/blobdiff_plain/7e0302decdb646266b86ba7a59b6b2f697ff275d..9cb69123352ffa47c66a6da5bdabaabed004a5ec:/pod/perlretut.pod
diff --git a/pod/perlretut.pod b/pod/perlretut.pod
index 10d344c..1e1cdd4 100644
--- a/pod/perlretut.pod
+++ b/pod/perlretut.pod
@@ -17,21 +17,42 @@ expressions display an efficiency and flexibility unknown in most
other computer languages. Mastering even the basics of regular
expressions will allow you to manipulate text with surprising ease.
-What is a regular expression? A regular expression is simply a string
-that describes a pattern. Patterns are in common use these days;
+What is a regular expression? At its most basic, a regular expression
+is a template that is used to determine if a string has certain
+characteristics. The string is most often some text, such as a line,
+sentence, web page, or even a whole book, but less commonly it could be
+some binary data as well.
+Suppose we want to determine if the text in variable, C<$var> contains
+the sequence of characters S