> I guess it's talking about *? - this will match the minimum number of times
> for a sucessful match, rather than the maximum.
Let me say the same with more formalism :
perldoc perlre :
By default, a quantified subpattern is "greedy", that is, it will match
as many times as possible (given a particular starting location) while
still allowing the rest of the pattern to match. If you want it to match
the minimum number of times possible, follow the quantifier with a "?".
Note that the meanings don't change, just the "greediness":
*? Match 0 or more times
+? Match 1 or more times
?? Match 0 or 1 time
{n}? Match exactly n times
{n,}? Match at least n times
{n,m}? Match at least n but not more than m times
