use strict; use warnings; my @tests=('For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2015', 'For the fiscal year ending December 31, 2015', 'For the fiscal year ending December 31, 2015'); for my $line (@tests) { my ($date)=$line=~/\s+(January|Febuary|March|April|May|June|July|August|September|October|November|December\s+\d+,\s+\d+)/; print $date."\n"; }