use warnings; use strict; my $paren_grp = qr{ \( \d+ (?: , \d+)* \) }xms; my $non_paren = qr{ [^(] }xms; for my $n (0 .. 3) { my $s = '(1) XXX (123) YY YY (1,22,333) Z Z Z (22,1)'; $s =~ m{ \A $non_paren* (?: $paren_grp $non_paren*){$n} \( }xmsg; $s =~ s{ \G ,? \K (\d+) }{'$1'}xmsg; print qq{skip $n :$s: \n}; }