use strict;
my $str = '9993990487 - 9993990487
9993990553 - 9993990553
9993990554 - 9993990559
9993990570 - 9993990570
9993990593 - 9993990596
9993990594 - 9993990594';
my $regex = qr/^(\d+)\h+-\h+\1$/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