#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; my $A = 'ATGGAGTCGACGAATTTGAAGAAT'; my $B = 'xxxxxxATGGAGyxxxTCGAzxxxxCGAATTTGAAxxwGAAT'; my $Are = join '(.*?)', '^', (map "($_)", $A =~ /(.)/sg), '$'; (my @introns = $B =~ m/$Are/) or die "There was no possible way to match the input."; my @seq; while(@introns) { my $match = shift @introns; if(@seq and not $match) { $seq[-1] .= shift @introns || ''; next; } push @seq, $match; } print "$A\n@seq\n"; __END__ ATGGAGTCGACGAATTTGAAGAAT xxxxxx ATGGAG yxxx TCGA zxxxx CGAATTTGAA xxw GAAT