my @parts = (' EUR[12348]', ' EURO\.', ' CHF10', ' Y5', ' NV', 'NON-CUM', ' LTD', ' FIN ', ' INTL', '\$', ...); sub format { local $" = "|"; $long =~ s/ & CO [^,]+/ AND CO/; $long =~ s/&/AND/g; $long =~ s/(?:@parts)[^,]+//g; $long =~ s/\s+$//g; }