use strict;
my $str = '<all-tags
with-their="attribute"
even-if-there="are-more"
aa="1">and all the content between
the start and end tag</all-tags><meta-tag />';
my $regex = qr/(\s?\n+\s+|\n)/p;
my $subst = ' ';
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