Regex to search pattern surrounded by a common pattern repetitively

Question

I have following string.

$str = "abafghababa";

I want to search pattern aba and its count.

Expected output for count is 3

I was trying with $count = () = $str =~ /aba/; But this is resulting as 2 which is correct. But i want to findout a way where it can result as 3.

Answer 1

Since you want to match aba that are overlapping you will need to use lookaheads which is zero width assertion.

You can use this rgex:

/(?=(aba))/g

And get the group count.

RegEx Demo