s/ \{name_a ( (?: [^=\s]+ = "[^"]*" | \s+ )+ ) \}/ FunAt($1) /gex; sub FunAt { join '', '{name_a ', AtAt(@_) ,'}'; } sub AtAt { my %fun = $_[0] =~ m/([^=\s]+) = ("[^"]*")/gx; return join ' ', map { "$_=$fun{$_}" } grep /param_[xy]/, keys %fun; }