in reply to Delete Lines Across Multiple Files

Here is another solution for you.
This could be made more general purpose, but...
use strict; use warnings; use Inline::Files; my @files = qw (FOO BAR FOOBAR MOREFOO); omit_lines(\@files, 5, 42); sub omit_lines { my ($files, @nums) = @_; foreach my $fileName (@$files) { print "*** $fileName ***\n"; while (<$fileName>) { next unless /^\S/; #skip blank lines my (@digits) = $_ =~ /(\d+)/g; next if ( ($digits[0] == $nums[0]) and ($digits[1] == $nums[1]) ); print; } } } =prints: The lines with 5, 42 are gone.. *** FOO *** abc 1 32 *** BAR *** asdf 2 12 *** FOOBAR *** xyz 3 43 *** MOREFOO *** abc 1 32 xyz 3 43 =cut __FOO__ abc 1 32 __BAR__ asdf 5 42 asdf 2 12 __FOOBAR__ xyz 3 43 asdf 5 42 __MOREFOO__ abc 1 32 asdf 5 42 xyz 3 43 asdf 5 42