use strict;
my $str = 'BLOCKSMKNETS forward: in:ether6 - Local TORF out:VLAN55 RT_INET, src-mac 5c:9a:d8:65:99:b7, proto TCP (SYN), 192.168.0.141:62632->192.168.6.18:65535, len 52';
my $regex = qr/(?<=(in:))[a-x0-9]+/mp;
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