Before worrying about the amount of code, I'd first focus on making your code more idiomatic and self-documenting. Sometimes it takes more code, not less, to write good code. In addition to the indenting problem noted above, consider the following changes:

# your code looks like an extract from a larger document
# but just in case you aren't
# do use strictures and declare your variables
# it will save you *A LOT* of debugging time
use strict;
use warnings;

# DECLARE YOUR VARIABLES!
my $FH = \*STDOUT;
my $target_db = $ARGV[0];
my $target_os = $ARGV[1];
my $flag;

while (my $line = <DATA>) {
  if ($line =~ /WNT/ || $line =~ /UNX/) {
    print "$line\n";
  }

  # be consistant:
  # if you are unsetting a flag with undef, then always use
  # defined to check for an unset flag.  Not everything that
  # is false is also undef.

  if (defined($flag)) {

    # Fix some potential bugs/cause for warnings:
    # *  check to see if variables are defined before using
    #    equals or regex comparisons.  Otherwise you will get
    #    warnings.
    # Make code more readable and self documenting
    # *  negations are harder to read than positives
    # *  conditions shouldn't be buried inside an else {...} if
    #    they apply to the entire content of the block.
    # *  or'd regexes can be combined into one to make it clearer
    #    that one is interested in a set of alternatives

    if (defined($target_db)) {
      if ($target_db eq 'sql') {
        next if ($line =~ /informix|oracle/i);
      } elsif ($line =~ /$target_db/i) {
        next;
      }
    }

    #* conditions that apply to the entire block should be
    #  part of the if/elsif clause UNLESS you expect to be
    #  expanding a simple condition to a full fledged if-else

    print $FH "$line";
    if (defined($target_os)) {

      # leaving room for a more complicated target_os logic
      # later on

      if ($line =~ /$target_os/) {
        undef $flag;
        next;
      }
    }
  }

  #* defined is a fast check, so do it first
  #* defined($flag) is better than (defined $flag)
  #* double quoting a single variable is redundant.
  #* if we're not expecting more complicated logic
  #  combine all conditions that apply to the block into
  #  the if statement

  if (!defined($flag)
      && ($line =~ /UNX|WNT|COMPONENT/)) {

    $flag = 1;
    print $FH $line;
  }
}

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Best, beth

In reply to Re: Looking for less code by ELISHEVA
in thread Looking for less code by Sun751

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