a2ps perl mode trips on regular expression

[Stuart Cooper]

a2ps hangs trying to print out the following file in perl mode:

##############################
#!/usr/bin/perl

$x =~ 
m!^date:\s(\d\d\d\d/\d\d/\d\d\s\d\d:\d\d:\d\d);\s+author:\s([\w.]+);\s+(.*)$!;
$x =~ 
m!^date:\s(\d{4}/\d{2}/\d{2}\s\d{2}:\d{2}:\d{2});\s+author:\s([\w.]+);\s+(.*)$!;
###############################

stick # before the first $x (making that line a comment) and it prints fine.

i think it gets tripped up on \d\d\d\d/\d\d/\d\d can hardly blame it!

a2ps --version
GNU a2ps 4.13
Written by Akim Demaille, Miguel Santana.

OS: Fedora Core 2 Linux
Perl: 5.8.3
Linux kernel: 2.6.5-1.358

Best regards,
Stuart.