Thanks to all for your responses

As it turns out I had forgotten a case which all methods are having problems solving.

For example:

my $str = "05/04/2010 13:09:45 - A - somebody - ( ( my.my id >= 1 ) an
+d ( is-mother.to code intersects afunc(val1,val2,val3,val4) and ( is-
+father.to code  intersects bfunc(val1,val2,val3,val4) )";
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Krambambuli - Nice little one liner

cdarke - I do not have access to feature in this environment and in a very quick look at cpan I could not find what module had feature in it. Sorry, I did not pursue this example.

Marshell - I liked this, good small brute force example

repellent - This is really what I was looking for but like the others it is having problems with ( is-mother.to code intersects afunc(val1,val2,val3,val4).

my $str = "05/04/2010 13:09:45 - A - somebody - ( is-mother.to code in
+tersects afunc(val1,val2,val3,val4) )";

$VAR1 = [
          '05/04/2010 13:09:45 - A - somebody - ',
          [
            '(',
            ' is-mother.to code intersects afunc',
            [
              '(',
              'val1,val2,val3,val4',
              ')'
            ],
            ' ',
            ')'
          ]
        ];
String is balanced.
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Since it seems that all are having issues with this one scenario I am thinking I will have to combine Parse::Balanced with some brute force operations.

One idea I have is to just

• Grab the portions of the line containing this unique pattern(s).
• Remove it from the line and deal with it seperately.
• Finish normally with whats left of the resulting line.

Unless someone can come up with a way to handle the line in it's entirety.

Result should be

my $str = "05/04/2010 13:09:45 - A - somebody - ( ( my.my id >= 1 )
 and ( is-mother.to code intersects afunc(val1,val2,val3,val4) and ( i
+s-father.to code intersects bfunc(val1,val2,val3,val4) )";

my.my id >= 1
is-mother.to code intersects afunc(val1,val2,val3,val4)
is-father.to code intersects bfunc(val1,val2,val3,val4)
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