use warnings; use strict; my @files = ; for my $modfile (@files) { open my $fh, '+<', $modfile or die "$modfile: $!"; my $data = do { local $/; <$fh> }; $data =~ s/Marry Had A\nLittle Lamb\nShe Was GOOD\n/CHANGED!!!\n/smg; seek $fh, 0, 0 or die $!; truncate $fh, 0 or die $!; print $fh $data; close $fh; }