There is no need to match non-greedily on the post-decimal digits: s{ (-? \d+ \.? \d* ) --? \d+ \. \d* }{$1}x should be fine.
_____________________________________________________
Jeff japhy Pinyan, P.L., P.M., P.O.D, X.S.: Perl, regex, and perl hacker
How can we ever be the sold short or the cheated, we who for every service have long ago been overpaid? ~~ Meister Eckhart

In reply to Re: Misunderstood regexp by japhy
in thread Misunderstood regexp by moonunit

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