Can someone tell me how to start searching for either of 2 words and stop searching when I discover either of the other 2 words followed by a blank line.

You're on the right track, though I suspect that the +? might not be doing what you want it do. It would help to show us a few representative records.

Would something like 

while ( /^((?:DES|TN).*?(?:DATE|ZONE)[ A-Z0-9]*)$^$/sm ) {
    # $1 is the matched record, without the blank line
}

[download]
work?

In reply to Re: Regex Question by dws
in thread Regex Question by set_uk

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