All of the answers so far have not correctly replicated the behaviour of the original code - I don't know if this is really an issue but multiple START and END (sic! and not STOP - there's a typo in the original post) aren't matched. To do so I would suggest:

my @good_stuff = $stuff =~ /^START\n(.*?)^END$/gms;

# or alternatively with START and END around
my @good_stuff = $stuff =~ /(^START$.*?^END$)/gms;
[download]

This captures into the array @good_stuff and can then be further processed. This is quite similar to the solution from tadman. Note the /m modifier to let ^ and $ match inside the string just before and after a newline. The /s modifier ensures that .*? matches everything including newlines.

Another issue are the benchmarks done here in this thread. These don't show anything, it depends on the structure of the real data.

• The solution from tachyon - apart from breaking on multiple START/END combinations - is slow on something like

  $stuff = << EOF;
  blah
  START
  a few lines
  END
  lots of lots of lines
  EOF
  [download]

  as it has to backtrack from the end of the string.
• Something like tadman's solution works well on the example above but is slower than tachyon's on this

  $stuff = << EOF;
  blah
  START
  lots of lots of lines
  END
  blah
  EOF
  [download]

  as the non-greedy .*? matching advances slower than greedy .*

So to sum up, you should always run benchmark tests on some real data to get an impression on how different methods compare. Try different test strings both for matching success and failure cases.

-- Hofmator

---

---

Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!

Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.

Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.

Please read these before you post! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:

a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr

You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)

	For:		Use:
	&		&
	<		&lt;
	>		&gt;
	[		&#91;
	]		&#93;

Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?

See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.