use strict; use warnings; my $Orig = '7374,726327,"76,237",32324,"21,342,857",23'; my $Mod = $Orig; 1 while $Mod =~ s/((?:^|,)"[^"]*?),([^"]*?"(?:,|$))/$1$2/g; print "$Orig => $Mod\n"; 7374,726327,"76,237",32324,"21,342,857",23 => 7374,726327,"76237",32324,"21342857",23