use Data::Dumper; my $table_ref="!Frequency[A][B][C] ..some other text.."; ### Groups specified explicitly my $var_rx = qr / \[ ( [^\]]+ ) \] /x; my $file_rx = qr / ! ( [^\[]+ ) /x; my $regex = qr/^ $file_rx $var_rx $var_rx? $var_rx? $var_rx? \s+.*/x; my @matches = ( $table_ref =~ /$regex/); print Dumper (\@matches); ## Loop my ($filename) = ($table_ref =~ /^ $file_rx /gcx ); my @vars; while ( $table_ref =~ /\G $var_rx/gcx ) { push @vars,$1; } print Dumper($filename,\@vars);