If all you really want to do is remove the tags, this should be enough: 
my $string = "-<ID>A8W11200031</ID>";
$string =~ s/<.+?>//g;
print $string . "\n";

[download]
Ofcourse, if your actual input contains other tags than what your sample input shows, you'll get funny results.

-- Time flies when you don't know what you're doing

In reply to Re: Help for regex by FloydATC
in thread Help for regex by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
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