use strict;
my $str = 'aaa-b3-c
a3-b6-c
aaaa-bb-c
aaa-b3-c3
a3-1b6-c
aaaa-bb-c7';
my $regex = qr/^([a-z]+-[a-z]+[0-9]+-[a-z]+)$|^([a-z]+[0-9]+-[a-z]+[0-9]+-[a-z])$|^([a-z]+-[a-z]+-[a-z])$/mip;
my $subst = '\\1\\2\\3';
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