Your initial string suffers from interpolation. Changing to single quotes, using the /s modifier and testing gives us the desired results:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Test::More;

my $lines = 'Aliquam vitae ipsum id felis finibus congue. Ut molestie 
+scelerisque purus,
 sit amet rhoncus leo aliquet ac. In eu lobortis quam. Maecenas auctor
+ semper enim,
 ut convallis sapien dictum eu. Sed arcu ex, ornare et porttitor vitae
+, interdum a mi.
 Mauris rutrum luctus rhoncus. Quisque velit quam, convallis vel est a
+t, tincidunt accumsan velit.
 Fusce ut <u>metus ut which may either exceed $1,000.00 or OK. G. LAT,
 semper nunc, in dictum magna.</u>
 Aliquam ac vestibulum dolor. Praesent in magna nisi. Cras nec viverra
+ ligula. Suspendisse
 efficitur imperdiet eros, <u>sed rhoncus sapien euismod cursus. Vesti
+bulum a posuere</u> elit,
 eget tristique eros. Etiam et lectus venenatis, aliquet dui vitae, po
+suere lectus.';
 

my ($first, $second) = ($lines =~ /<u>(.*?)<\/u>/sg);
is ($first, 'metus ut which may either exceed $1,000.00 or OK. G. LAT,
 semper nunc, in dictum magna.', 'First match');
is ($second, 'sed rhoncus sapien euismod cursus. Vestibulum a posuere'
+, 'Second match');
done_testing ();

[download]
$ perl 1160410.pl
ok 1 - First match
ok 2 - Second match
1..2

[download]

If that doesn't fix your problem you'll need to be a lot more specific about how it fails for you.

In reply to Re: Matching text between tags by hippo
in thread Matching text between tags by Anonymous Monk

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