In addition to using either the non-greedy quantifier (.*?) or skipping up to the next > ([^>]*), you also want to capture the text up through the matching end-tag, for which you just need a non-greedy quantifier inside capturing parens. So your regex should look like 
m{<APPEND\b[^>]*>(.*?)</APPEND>}

[download]

This puts the text between the tags into $1; if you really want the ending tag, too, just move the paren. I added the /b to make sure you only match <APPEND> tags, and not, e.g., <APPENDIX>. The only caveats on this are:

  1. You might want to add a /i modifier to the match, in case someone adds the tags in lower case.
  2. If there's ever a chance of a '>' appearing in the attributes of the tag, you need something more complicated. The following (untested, but based on Friedl's Mastering Regular Expressions) should work: 
    m{<APPEND\b(?:"[^"]*"|'[^']*'|[^'">])*>(.*?)</APPEND>}

    [download]

HTH,
--roundboy

In reply to Re: Regex a little less greedy please by roundboy
in thread Regex a little less greedy please by martymart

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