I think I'd do it something .like this. If you want all of the blocks they are in @segs.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

my $string = 'abbbcddddfegrgrgddeeeeedd';

# Get repeated characters
my @segs = $string =~ /((.)\2+)/g;

# Filter to get only multi-char strings
@segs = grep { length > 1 } @segs;

# Sort
@segs = sort { length $b <=> length $a } @segs;

# Construct answer string
my $answer = '-' x index($string, $segs[0]) . $segs[0];
$answer .= '-' x (length($string) - length($answer));

print "$string\n$answer\n";

[download]
--
<http://www.dave.org.uk>

"The first rule of Perl club is you do not talk about Perl club."
-- Chip Salzenberg

In reply to Re: Block Search by davorg
in thread Block Search by artist

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • 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! —
  • 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:
    & &amp;
    < &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.