#! perl use strict; use warnings; my $num = qr{ \d+ (?: \. \d* )? }x; my @patterns = ( qr{ ^ N $num G03X $num Y $num K $num J $num H1M25 $ }x, qr{ ^ N $num M20 $ }x, qr{ ^ N $num G45 $ }x, qr{ ^ N $num G01X $num Y $num C $num M25 $ }x, ); my $count = 1; my %patterns = map { $_ => $count++ } @patterns; OUTER: while (my $line = ) { chomp $line; for (keys %patterns) { if ($line =~ $_) { print "$line matches pattern $patterns{$_}\n"; next OUTER; } } print "No match found for $line\n"; } __DATA__ N335G03X247.16Y580.07K6.89J96.62H1M25 N340M20 N345G45 N350G01X832.56Y692.92C275.44M25 N355M20 N360G46C0 N365G03Y720.88I146.74J13.98H36M25