note stefan k Hi,<br> I use to keep my variables on a hash and then use a very similar approach as [abell] (assuming that the variables are written in a Makefile-like style: <code>$(variablename)</code>: <code> foreach (keys %global_variables) { $content =~ s/\$\($_\)/$global_variables{$_}/g; } </code> but with this code it is not possible to escape the variable name expansion (e.g. by putting a <code>\</code>) in front of the <code>$</code>. Since there are probably some pitfalls around it would be wise to use an exisiting templating system (btw: is there any reason that so many templating systems exist? ;-) <p> <table width="80%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td><small>Regards...</small></td> <td align="right"><small> <a href="http://www.skamphausen.de">Stefan</a> </small></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" align="center"> <small>you begin bashing the string with a +42 regexp of confusion</small> </td> </tr> </table> 219261 219261