c:\@Work\Perl>perl -wMstrict -le "my %xlate_map = qw/ ( l_paren ) r_paren { l_curly } r_curly /; my $xlate_targets = join '', map quotemeta, keys %xlate_map; ;; sub xlate { my ($s, $targets, $hr_map) = @_; ;; (my $t = $s) =~ s{ ([$targets]) }{$hr_map->{$1}}xmsg; return $t; } ;; my $str = 'a { b } c ( d ) e'; my $xlt = xlate($str, $xlate_targets, \%xlate_map); print qq{'$xlt'}; " 'a l_curly b r_curly c l_paren d r_paren e'