Answer: How do I delete the last instance of a word from a string? contributed by suaveant substr($string,rindex($string,$word),length($word)) = ''; [download] or, to avoid removing the last character of the string when $word is not present: my $ri = rindex($string,$word); substr($string,$ri,length($word)) = '' if $ri > -1; [download] Edit by tye to incorporate reply

Answer: How do I delete the last instance of a word from a string? contributed by tye Although I prefer the rindex/substr solution, another alternative involves regular expressions with "zero-width negative look-ahead assertions": s/\Q$word\E(?!.*\Q$word\E)//s or, if you really only want "words": s/\b\Q$word\E\b(?!.*\b\Q$word\E\b)//s

Answer: How do I delete the last instance of a word from a string? contributed by Incognito tye's regex solution works well, but you may want to modify it to: $sentence =~ s/\b\Q$word\E\b\s+(?!.*\b\Q$word\E\b)//s; [download] to elimitate the extra space that's left when the word is removed. This leaves us with: String: the quick brown dog jumped the doggy style dog killing doggie +eater. Result: the quick brown dog jumped the doggy style killing doggie eate +r. [download] where the $word = "dog". (Added by tye) Note that if the last occurance of that word is also the last word of a sentence, it will have whitespace in front of it and not behind it and this regex will fail. If the last occurance of the word is unlikely to be the first word in the string, then $sentence =~ s/\s*\b\Q$word\E\b(?!.*\b\Q$word\E\b)//s; [download] would be a better choice.

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