#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; my $poem; { local $/ = undef; $poem = ; } my( $before, $after) = $poem =~ m/(.*)\bDOG\b(.*)/s; print "Text before:\n$before\n\n"; print "Text after:\n$after\n\n"; __DATA__ A Beautiful Poem Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb Mary had a DOG but everywhere that mary went the lamb was sure to go even though it did not like the dog very much. # Output Text before: A Beautiful Poem Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb Mary had a Text after: but everywhere that mary went the lamb was sure to go even though it did not like the dog very much.