my $str = q["2","T,E,S,T,B","Lazowsky","Mike's","Teststring"]; $str =~ s< \s* ( \"[^\"]+ \" \s* ) (,|$) > < (local $a = $1) =~ tr/,//d; $a . $2 ; >gex; #!" print $str; __END__ #Output C:\test>229505 "2","TESTB","Lazowsky","Mike's","Teststring" C:\test>