my $au = 'PAUL A. HUBBARD,1 WENFENG YU,2 HORST SCHULZ,2 JUNG-JA P. KIM1'; my @au = map ''.$_.'', split(/<\/SUP>/, $au); pop @au; foreach my $line (@au) { $line =~ s/\,|<.?AU>|(>)\s/$1/gi; print $line ."\n"; }