my $skip_before = 1; my $skip_after = 1; my @prev; my $skip_next = 0; while (<>) { if (/XXXXX/) { @prev = (); $skip_next = $skip_after; } elsif ($skip_next) { --$skip_next; } else { push @prev, $_; print(shift(@prev)) if @prev > $skip_before; } } print(@prev);