Hmmm. Can you show how you are running it? This is how my complete code looked:

#!/usr/bin/env perl
use strict;
use warnings;

open my $in, "<", shift;

while( my $line = <$in> ) {
    $line =~ s/ .* report s? .* ; .* //sx;
    print $line;
}
[download]

Be sure to put the name of the report file as an argument on the CL. Also, which operating system are you using?

I am running the code in cygwin and here is my complete code.

#!/bin/perl5.8.6

use warnings;
use diagnostics;
use File::Basename;

@files = <../tryremove/*>;

#This is the destination path where the comment removed files are crea
+ted.
$path1 = "C:/Projects/tryremove/c";

foreach my $file (@files) {
  my $filename =basename($file);
  open(file1,"$file") or die "The file cannot be opened the $file:$!\n
+";
  open(file2,">$path1/$filename") or die "The file cannot be opened:$!
+\n";

while(!eof(file1)){
  $/ = undef;
  $_ = <file1>;
  s# .* report [s]? .* ; .* ##sx;
  print file2 ($_);
}

close(file1);
close(file2);
}
[download]

Thanks. Please delete the line:

$/ = undef;

and let me know if it works.

Here is the program using a different approach with the range operator.

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

while (<DATA>) {
    if ((my $first = /^\s*#if/) .. (my $last = /^\s*#endif/)) {
        #print if $first || $last;
        print unless /^\s*reports?/;
    }
    else {
        print;    
    }
}
[download]

Its a neat use of the range, ( .. ), operator.

Chris

Update: changed the first print line to more accurately perform what you needed.