A little more straightforwardly: 
foreach (@array) {
    s{/(MSS.*?)/}
     { my $m=$1; $m=~s/ +([^*])/$1/g; $m}ge;
}

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Note that I'm using {} as delimiters for the main s///, and that what looks like an inner block of code is the replacement portion. The e option causes it to be eval'd.

Within the eval section, I operate on the matched string, and replace any spaces that are followed by something other than a * with whatever they are followed by.

Without the +, it would squeeze multiple spaces into one space, when followed by a *, and if not followed by a *, it would (of course) remove them all.

In reply to Re: How do I match for a pattern in an array element delimited with a / by Roy Johnson
in thread How do I match for a pattern in an array element delimited with a / by Anonymous Monk

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