in reply to regular expression assistance

Regexp::Common is pure Perl. If you can put your code on the boxen in question, you can put it on the boxen in question as well (or at the very least cut and paste the desired portions into your code).

Additionally: \s*\s+ doesn't really make a whole frell of a lot of sense . . .

The cake is a lie.
The cake is a lie.
The cake is a lie.