use strict; use warnings; open my $dataFH, q{<}, \ <; }; close $dataFH or die qq{close: $!\n}; my $rxGroup = qr {(?xs) (library_[^\n]+)\n ([^\n]+)\n (.*?\n) (?=(?:library_|\z)) }; while ( $dataString =~ m{$rxGroup}g ) { print qq{$1:$2:$_\n} for split m{\n}, $3; } #### library_AND:PIN.A:DELAY_TABLE 1 20 2 40 3 60 4 65 5 75; library_AND:PIN.A:DELAY_TABLE 1 10 2 15 3 45 4 70 5 80; library_AND:PIN.A:POWER_TABLE 20 30 40 50 80 97 110 20; library_AND:PIN.A:POWER_TABLE 3 4 5 6 10 80 90 10 20; library_BUF:PIN.B:LEAKAGE 1 2 3 4; library_BUF:PIN.B:TRANSIT 1.1 2 3.4; #### while ( my $group = $dataString =~ m{$rxGroup}g )