note
wind
It sounds like you're just wanting to remove any periods that follow just one word character. I'm sure there might be a rare exception to this, but the following would accomplish that basic feat:
<code>
use strict;
use warnings;
my $str = "a history of u.s. coast guard aviation. M.C. Esher";
$str =~ s/(?<=\W\w)\.//g;
print $str, "\n";
</code>
I'd also be tempted to force capitalization on those abbreviations, but that might not be what you're after:
<code>
# Remove periods and capitalize, so we have US instead of us.
$str =~ s/(?<=\W)(\w)\./\U$1/g;
</code>
- Miller
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