#!/usr/bin/perl use common::sense; my $data = join('', ); $data =~ s{(^|\n)begin\n # begin at start of string or line (.*?\n)*? # lines to skip (non-greedy) end\n} # matching end {$1begin\nend\n}sx; print $data; __DATA__ a begin 1 a 2 end c begin c end a begin 1