Is there a way to precompile a regex in Perl?

Question

Is there a way to precompile a regex in Perl? I have one that I use many times in a program and it does not change between uses.

Answer 1

for clarification, you can user precompiled regex as:

my $re = qr/foo|bar/;  #precompile phase
if ( $string =~ $re ) ...   #for direct use
if ( $string =~ /$re/ ) .... #the same as above but a bit complicated
if ( $string =~ m/something $re other/x ) ...  #for use precompiled as a part of bigger regex
if ( $string =~ s/$re/replacement/ ) ...  #for direct use as replace
if ( $string =~ s/some $re other/replacement/x ) ... #for use precompiled as a part of bigger, and as replace all at once

It is documented in perlre but there are no direct examples.