#! /usr/bin/perl -w use strict; my $valueToDelete = "two 222 sld"; my $content = ''; open my $fh, 'oldfile' || die $!; do {local $/; $content = <$fh>}; close $fh; $content =~ s/^$valueToDelete\n//m; open $fh, '>newfile' || die $!; print $fh $content; close $fh;