use strict;
my $str = 'some text to not modify
some pattern on more than one line START
text to be indented
or remove indentation maybe ?
some pattern on more than one line END
some text to not modify
---
some text to not modify
some pattern on more than one line START
text to be indented
or remove indentation maybe ?
some pattern on more than one line END
some text to not modify';
my $regex = qr/(?s)\n(?=(?:(?!START).)*?END)/mp;
my $subst = '\\n\\t';
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