First, change your substitution regexp to: s/$pattern/' ' x length( $1 )/gie; ...note the use of $1 instead of $&. It is advisable to always avoid $& if possible for performance reasons.

Now to answer your question: Use a second regexp to keep it simple, and it should look like this: 

$target_data =~ s/(\n{2,})/'\n' . ( ' ' x length( $1 ) ) /ge;

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That converts any blank lines to a line with spaces in it equalling the number of blank lines found in a row. If you don't want the blank spaces to occupy a new line, remove the '\n' part from the right side of the substitution regexp.


Dave

In reply to Re: Replacing the pattern by davido
in thread Replacing the pattern by agynr

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