If you split on the blank lines instead of on newlines then you don't have to go back:

#!/usr/bin/env perl 
use strict;
use warnings;

my $input = qq#
PEM 0:

PEM 1:

PEM 2:
  State:     Online

PEM 3:
  State:     Online

#;

for my $rec (split /\n\n/, $input) {
    next unless $rec =~ /State:\s+Online/;
    $rec =~ /(PEM \d+)/ or die "Bad input: no PEM in '$rec'!";
    print "$1 is online\n";
}

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In reply to Re: Regular expression query by hippo
in thread Regular expression query by Anonymous Monk

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