#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; my $string = << "__EOS__"; foo bar baz foo bar foo\tbaz ccc ddd foo bar foo\tbaz ccc ddd\tfoo\tbar\tbaz foo bar foo\t\tbaz ccc ddd\t\t\tfoo __EOS__ open my $F0, '<', \$string or die $!; while (<$F0>) { my $match; while (/\t+/g) { $match = 1; print $-[0], ' ', $+[0], ' '; } print '-1 -1' unless $match; print "\n"; }