use strict;
my $str = '<div attr1="value"></div>
<!-- this is a HTML comment -->';
my $regex = qr/([\n ]*((<((([a-zA-Z]+)( +(\w|\w+-+\w*)+ *= *(( *(\w|\w+-+\w*)+ *)|((") *.+ *("))|((') *.+ *('))|(\\" *.+ *\\")|(\\' *.+ *\\')))* *((\/)|(>([ \n]|.)*<\/[a-zA-Z]+)))|(!--([ \n]|.)*--))>)([\n ]*<((([a-zA-Z]+)( +(\w|\w+-+\w*)+ *= *(( *(\w|\w+-+\w*)+ *)|((") *.+ *("))|((') *.+ *('))|(\\" *.+ *\\")|(\\' *.+ *\\')))* *((\/)|(>([ \n]|.)*<\/[a-zA-Z]+)))|(!--([ \n]|.)*--))>)*)[\n ]*$)/yp;
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