Maybe you're reading the data in wrong somehow? The following seems to do what you want, I think. (Not 100% sure if I followed you, but hope this helps.)
use strict; use warnings; my $content = ""; while (<DATA>) { $content = $content . $_; } print "content: $content"; # sanity check while ($content =~m/^(CAL.+\((\w+)\))/mg){ print "\n1= $1"; print "\n2= $2"; } __DATA__ CALCON(test1) { TYPE(U8) FEATURE(DCOM) NAM(stmin) LABEL(Min seperation time between CFs) MIN(0) MAX(127) UNITS(ms) } CALCON(test2) { TYPE(U16) FEATURE(DCOM) NAM(dcomc_sestmr_timeout) LABEL(DCOM Session Timer Timeout) MIN(0) MAX(65535) UNITS(ms) }
This outputs:
1= CALCON(test1) 2= test1 1= CALCON(test2) 2= test2

In reply to Re: nested reg ex over multiple lines by tphyahoo
in thread nested reg ex over multiple lines by eg8rds

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