Other specific solutions are great. But I got onto a different track as I think the idea of the range ... operator is a good one as this leads to a general solution that can be used to sort the input records by some arbitrary input criteria, etc. The idea being to make an Array of Hash and then process that...

I got this far with some code. It works fine except for some reason, this code requires a "blank line" between the define {....} records otherwise a record gets missed in the final array. I appear to be in some sort of "brain lock" right now! The solution has to be simple, and I've gotten some hints, but I'm not able to see it! Oh, yes I do know that my deleteDB() sub isn't the fastest critter on the block. 

define host{
    use windows-server
    ....
    }
    
define host{
    use windows-server
    }
is ok, BUT 
define host{
    use windows-server
    ....
    } 
define host{
    use windows-server
    }
is not ok!

[download]
#!usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Data::Dumper;

my @DB;
my %hash = ();

while (<DATA>)
{
   if ( m/^define/.../}\s*$/)
   {
      next if /{\s*$/;
      next if /\s*\}\s*/;
      my ($hkey,$hval) = split;
      $hash{$hkey}=$hval;
   }
   else
   {
      push @DB, {%hash};
   }
}
push @DB,{%hash};

print Dumper \@DB;  #Array of Hash has been created

deleteDB ('address' => '192.168.1.1'); #delete one record

sub deleteDB 
{
   my ($key,$value) = @_;
   
   @DB = grep {$_->{"$key"} ne "$value"} @DB;
}

print "=============================\n";
print Dumper \@DB;

#Prints:
#$VAR1 = [
#         {
#            'use' => 'windows-server',
#            'hostgroups' => '060202',
#            'host_name' => 'serverA',
#            'address' => '192.168.1.1',
#            'alias' => '060202',
#            'contact_groups' => 'yu'
#          },
#          {
#            'use' => 'windows-server',
#            'hostgroups' => '060202',
#            'host_name' => 'serverA',
#            'address' => '192.168.1.11',
#            'alias' => '060202',
#            'contact_groups' => 'yu'
#          },
#          {
#            'use' => 'windows-server',
#            'hostgroups' => '060202',
#            'host_name' => 'serverA',
#            'address' => '192.168.1.21',
#            'alias' => '060202',
#            'contact_groups' => 'yu'
#          }
#        ];
#=============================
#$VAR1 = [
#          {
#            'use' => 'windows-server',
#            'hostgroups' => '060202',
#            'host_name' => 'serverA',
#            'address' => '192.168.1.11',
#            'alias' => '060202',
#            'contact_groups' => 'yu'
#          },
#          {
#            'use' => 'windows-server',
#            'hostgroups' => '060202',
#            'host_name' => 'serverA',
#            'address' => '192.168.1.21',
#            'alias' => '060202',
#            'contact_groups' => 'yu'
#          }
#        ];

__DATA__
define host{
    use windows-server
    host_name serverA
    hostgroups 060202
    alias 060202
    contact_groups yu
    address 192.168.1.1
    }
    
define host{
    use windows-server
    host_name serverA
    hostgroups 060202
    alias 060202
    contact_groups yu
    address 192.168.1.11
    }
    
define host{
    use windows-server
    host_name serverA
    hostgroups 060202
    alias 060202
    contact_groups yu
    address 192.168.1.21
    }

[download]

In reply to Re: how to remove matched multi lines by Marshall
in thread how to remove matched multi lines by cxfcxf

Title:
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