Perl regex replace count

Question

Is it possible to specify the maximum number of matches to replace. For instance if matching 'l' in "Hello World", would it be possible to replace the first 2 'l' characters, but not the third without looping?

Answer 1

$str = "Hello world!";
$str =~ s/l/r/ for (1,2);
print $str;

I don't see what's so bad about looping.

Actually, here's a way:

$str="Hello world!"; 
$str =~ s/l/$i++ >= 2 ? "l": "r"/eg; 
print $str;

It's a loop, of sorts, since s///g works in a loopy way when you do this. But not a traditional loop.