#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; # https://perlmonks.org/?node_id=11128141 use warnings; use Time::HiRes qw( time ); my $string = do { local(@ARGV, $/) = '50k.foo'; <> }; my $start = time; parse_v( $string ); printf "seconds %.3f for length %d file\n", time - $start, length $string; sub parse_v { local $_ = shift; my $name; while( 1 ) { if(/\G (?: (?!endmodule\b|module\b) \S+ \s [^;]* ; | (?