use strict;
my $str = 'john_doe_13456_20_m_v5
john_doe_13456_20_m_n7_abc
john_doe_13456_20_m_t44
john_doe_13456_20_m_m13_bca_1
john_doe_13456_20_m_v5';
my $regex = qr/^(.*?_.*?_.*?)_/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