The grep symbols are a regular expression operator... its the m// operator with the m omitted (which is very valid and quite common) The regex he posted would not take those out as well. you would need to use an assertion after the semicolon in the current regex... to say... all this.. not followed by a ;.. the match says.

m/    #Match 
     ^#From the beginning of the line
   \S+#One or more non space characters
     ;#followed by a semi-colon
/
[download]

Anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong there.