$out = ""; while ($data =~ s#()(\w{3} ?)(.*?)(.*?)#$1$3#is) { $out .= $2. " " . $4 . "\n"; } #### perl -p0 -e '$x="";while (s#()(\w{3} ?)(.*?)(.*?)#$1$3#is) { $x.=$2." ".$4."\n"; } } $_ = $x; {' data