I've got a small project brewing and have been adding features over the last 1.5 weeks. The most-recent feature I've added is a dict.org lookup for each word in my taxonomy.

The code looks like this (and works great):

sub define_term {
        my $definition = shift;

        my $dict = Net::Dict->new('test.dict.org');
 
        my $result      = $dict->define("$definition")->[1][1];
 
        if (!$result) {
                $result = $dict->define(substr($definition, 0, -1))->[
+1][1];
        }

        if ($result) {
                print $cgi->h3("Definition of $definition");
                print $cgi->hr({-size=>'1'});
                print $cgi->pre("$result");
        }
}
[download]

This returns a definition that looks like the following:

bean
     n 1: any of various edible seeds of plants of the family
          Leguminosae [syn: {edible bean}]
     2: any of various seeds or fruits suggestive of beans
     3: any of various leguminous plants grown for their edible
        seeds and pods [syn: {bean plant}]
     4: informal terms for a human head [syn: {attic}, {bonce}, {noodl
+e},
         {noggin}, {dome}]
     v : hit on the head, esp. with a pitched baseball
[download]

These words are automagically wrapped in the response that comes back from dict.org, and that presentation isn't exactly ideal for my needs. I tried the various ::Wrap and unwrap modules, and none seem to do the job that I need.

I tried using Text::Flow::Wrap, Text::Wrap, Text::Wrap::Smart, and some hand-rolled regexes... without much success. It seems these modules are all designed to WRAP text, not UNwrap text.

In the above case, I'm trying to get the result that looks like (PM will wrap this somewhat, but what I'm trying to do is keep each numbered item on its own line, unwrapping each \d\..*, essentially):

bean
     n 1: any of various edible seeds of plants of the family. Legumin
+osae [syn: {edible bean}]
     2: any of various seeds or fruits suggestive of beans
     3: any of various leguminous plants grown for their edible seeds 
+and pods [syn: {bean plant}]
     4: informal terms for a human head [syn: {attic}, {bonce}, {noodl
+e}, {noggin}, {dome}]
     v : hit on the head, esp. with a pitched baseball
[download]

Can others suggest a better way of doing what I'm trying to do?