use strict;
my $str = 'Great talking with you. ? See you, the other guys and Mr. Jack Daniels next week, I hope-- ? Bobette ? ? Bobette Riner??????????????????????????????? Senior Power Markets Analyst?????? TradersNews Energy 713/647-8690 FAX: 713/647-7552 cell: 832/428-7008 bobette.riner@ipgdirect.com http://www.tradersnewspower.com ? ? - cinhrly020101.doc';
my $regex = qr/\s*([^\w\s]|_)\1+/mp;
my $subst = '\\1';
my $result = $str =~ s/$regex/$subst/rg;
print "The result of the substitution is' $result\n";
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for Perl, please visit: http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html