Currently, the MATCHING section of the re_syntax man page talks about "preferences", and states:

> A branch has the same preference as the first quantified atom in it which has a preference.

I don't this this is sufficiently clear to illustrate the differences between

    $ perl -e 'if ("1234" =~ {print "$& $1 $2\n"}'
    1234 1 234
    $ echo 'puts [regexp -inline "1234"]' | tclsh
    12 1 2

Can we have an explicit statement? Something like:

> If the first quantifier in a branch of a RE is non-greedy, quantifiers in the branch will be considered as non-greedy.

However, I just noticed something I can't explain: what's the difference between these?

    $ echo 'puts [regexp -inline "1234"]' | tclsh
    12 1 2
    $ echo 'puts [regexp -inline "1234"]' | tclsh
    1234 1 234