{ local $/ = undef; $_ = ; } #### $/ The input record separator, newline by default. Works like awk's RS variable, including treating empty lines as delimiters if set to the null string. (Note: An empty line cannot contain any spaces or tabs.) You may set it to a multi-character string to match a multi-character delimiter, or to undef to read to end of file. Note that setting it to "\n\n" means something slightly different than setting it to "", if the file contains consecutive empty lines. Setting it to "" will treat two or more consecutive empty lines as a single empty line. Setting it to "\n\n" will blindly assume that the next input character belongs to the next paragraph, even if it's a newline. (Mnemonic: / is used to delimit line boundaries when quoting poetry.) undef $/; $_ = ; # whole file now here s/\n[ \t]+/ /g; Remember: the value of $/ is a string, not a regexp. AWK has to be better for something :-)