$line =~ s/.$//;  #remove the last character before the newline
$line =~ s/[A-Za-z]$//;  #remove an alphabetic character before the newline
$line =~ s/;$//;  #remove a semicolon at the end of the line
$line =~ s/[ ]$//; #remove a single space at the end of the line
$line =~ s/\s+$//;  #remove one or more whitespace characters at the end of the line