>perl -wMstrict -le "my $s = '_+0GAA__+1GAA__+2GGAA__+3GGGAA_'; print qq{'$s'}; $s =~ s{ ( \+ (\d+) [ACGT]+ ) } { (my $r = $1) =~ s{ \+ \d+ [ACGT]{$2} }{}xms; $r }xmsge; print qq{'$s'}; " '_+0GAA__+1GAA__+2GGAA__+3GGGAA_' '_GAA__AA__AA__AA_' #### >perl -wMstrict -le "my $s = '_+0GAA__+1GAA__+2GGAA__+3GGGAA_'; print qq{'$s'}; $s =~ s{ ( \+ (\d+) [ACGT]+ ) } { substr $1, 1 + length($2) + $2 }xmsge; print qq{'$s'}; " '_+0GAA__+1GAA__+2GGAA__+3GGGAA_' '_GAA__AA__AA__AA_'