Why does order matter when using Perl switches -nle in a one liner?

Question

If I do -nle I get a different result than -len. Example: echo ham | perl -nle ' m/^h(.{2})/ ; print "$& and $1"' output: ham and am but the same line with -len gives me no output.

Answer 1

The e means "That which follows is a line of the script".

If you follow the e with an n then that is what you are trying to evaluate.