Thanks to the monks you responded. I have the following -- 
_TedPride();
# the above seems to go into an infinite loop. I have to 
# CTRL-C to exit. I also don't understand the idioms used

_jdporter();
# seems neat, but...
# the above exits immediately without printing anything

_ikegami();
# the only code that thus far prints correctly. 
# I have to run it against several variations to 
# confirm its robustness, Btw, I do not understand
# $-[1] and $+[1] bit. At first glance I thought it
# was a typo!

_Zaxo();
# as mentioned by ikegami, exits with 
# 'x' outside of string in unpack at ... line ...

_punkish();
# works, but skips a value or two

# Disclaimer:
# I tried to be very careful, but I may have copied the code 
# given above incorrectly

[download]
--

when small people start casting long shadows, it is time to go to bed

In reply to Re: Extracting formatted text block by punkish
in thread Extracting formatted text block by punkish

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