use strict;
my $str = '<li><a id="a4.9" href="trigger_marker.html#">Trigger marker</a> </li>
<li><a id="a4.10" href="timedelayarrow.html#">Time-delay arrow</a> </li>
<li><a id="a4.11" href="spectrumview.html#">Spectrum view</a> </li>';
my $regex = qr/(?<=id=")([^"\n]+)"[^#\n]+#\K/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