Most problems cause those lines that have 4 or 8 spaces before the searched word as in my example. Problem number two is how to remove all but the version number (here 0.11) from that line,

You're looking for a match, not a substitution. Here's how I'd do it (even if i really have no clue what you're trying to do, perhaps you ought to investigate perlfunc:split, and perhaps define the data you're processing better).

use strict;
use warnings;
my @LINES = (
"        VERSION:     0.11 12-Jul-2002  HWe",
" aaaa#VERSION:     0.11 12-Jul-2002  HWe",
" aaaa;VERSION:     0.11 12-Jul-2002  HWe", );

for my $L ( @LINES ) {
    print "We got VERSION $1\n"
      if $L =~ m{
          VERSION: # literal
          \s+      # followed by 1 or more space
          (\S+)    #  non-space 1 or more, captured to $1
          \s       # followed by a space
      }ix;         # ignore case, use extended patterns
}

eval q{
    require YAPE::Regex::Explain; 
    print "\n", 
    YAPE::Regex::Explain->new(
        qr[VERSION: \s+ (\S+) \s]ix
    )->explain;
};
print $@ if $@;
__END__
# ran as `perl oy>>oy'


We got VERSION 0.11
We got VERSION 0.11
We got VERSION 0.11

The regular expression:

(?ix-ms:VERSION: \s+ (\S+) \s)

matches as follows:
  
NODE                     EXPLANATION
----------------------------------------------------------------------
(?ix-ms:                 group, but do not capture (case-insensitive)
                         (disregarding whitespace and comments) (with
                         ^ and $ matching normally) (with . not
                         matching \n):
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  VERSION:                 'VERSION:'
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  \s+                      whitespace (\n, \r, \t, \f, and " ") (1 or
                           more times (matching the most amount
                           possible))
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  (                        group and capture to \1:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
    \S+                      non-whitespace (all but \n, \r, \t, \f,
                             and " ") (1 or more times (matching the
                             most amount possible))
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  )                        end of \1
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  \s                       whitespace (\n, \r, \t, \f, and " ")
----------------------------------------------------------------------
)                        end of grouping
----------------------------------------------------------------------
[download]

____________________________________________________
** The Third rule of perl club is a statement of fact: pod is sexy.

---

---

Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!

Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.

Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.

Please read these before you post! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:

a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr

You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)

	For:		Use:
	&		&
	<		&lt;
	>		&gt;
	[		&#91;
	]		&#93;

Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?

See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.