note ikegami From "not the second",I presume both lines are present in the variable being searched. (Previous posts assumed you were reading a line at a time.) <p>The following two snippets will stop matching at the first <c><0a></c>, not the second. <c> s/rcvtime.*?<0a>//; </c> <c> s/rcvtime(?:(?!<0a>).)*<0a>//; </c> 580985 580985