use warnings; use strict; my %mycorpus = ( a => " "blah title:#this is text I do not want# blah title:#this is text I want 2# blah title:#this is text I do not want# blah", c => "blah blah title:#this is text I want 3# title:#this is text I do not want# title:#this is text I do not want# title:#this is text I do not want# blah", ); foreach my $filename (sort keys %mycorpus) { my $titles = ''; while ($mycorpus{$filename} =~ /title:#(.*?)#/g){ $titles = $1; print "$titles \n"; } } #### this is text I want 1 this is text I want 2 this is text I want 3 #### use warnings; use strict; my %mycorpus = ( a => " "blah title:#this is text I do not want# blah title:#this is text I want 2# blah title:#this is text I do not want# blah", c => "blah blah title:#this is text I want 3# title:#this is text I do not want# title:#this is text I do not want# title:#this is text I do not want# blah", ); foreach my $filename (sort keys %mycorpus) { my $titles = ''; while ($mycorpus{$filename} =~ /title:#(.*?)#/g){ $titles = $1; $titles =~ s/(\b\w+\b)(?:\s*\1)+/$1/g; print "$titles \n"; } }