Er...duh, don't do that...

Why not? Your suggestion - with (.+?) - works fine for me:

while ( <DATA> ) {
   if ( /^ALTER\s+TABLE\s+
         (\w+)                   # $1
         \s+ADD\s+CONSTRAINT\s+
         (\w+)                   # $2
         \s+PRIMARY\s+KEY\s+\(\s*
         (.+?)                   # $3
         \s*\)/x ) {

      print "\$1: <$1> \$2: <$2> \$3: <$3>\n";
   }
}
__DATA__
ALTER TABLE ORDERS ADD CONSTRAINT PK_ORDER_ORDER_NUM PRIMARY KEY ( ORD
+ER_NUM)
ALTER TABLE ORDER_ITEMS ADD CONSTRAINT PK_ORDER_NUM_ITEMS PRIMARY KEY 
+( ORDER_NUM, ITEM_NUM, SUB_TYPE )
[download]

++hanenkamp (or have I missed something?)

dave