graff has answered your question. fwiw I find
HTML::TokeParser::Simple can, imo, help make this sort of task easier.
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use HTML::TokeParser::Simple;
my $sample_HTML = <<EOD;
<HTML>
blah.
<CDATA>
Just some random whatever. It might have some <b>real</b> HTML like a
+table or CSS styling
or even some <H1>IMPORTANT</H1> words. Maybe even a form <form method=
+post>...</form>
</CDATA>
</HTML>
EOD
my $p = HTML::TokeParser::Simple->new(\$sample_HTML)
or die qq{parse failed\n};
my ($in_cdata, $cdata);
while (my $t = $p->get_token){
$in_cdata++, next if $t->is_start_tag(q{cdata});
$in_cdata--, next if $t->is_end_tag(q{cdata});
next unless $in_cdata;
$cdata .= $t->as_is;
}
print $cdata;
Just some random whatever. It might have some <b>real</b> HTML like a
+table or CSS styling
or even some <H1>IMPORTANT</H1> words. Maybe even a form <form method=
+post>...</form>
