#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; my $s1 ='CCCATCTGTCCTTATTTGCTG'; my @a1 = qw(ATCTG ATTTG); my $s2 ='ACCCATCTGTCCTTGGCCAT'; my @a2 = qw(CCATC); my $s3 ='CCACCAGCACCTGTC'; my @a3 = qw(CCACC CCAGC GCACC); my $s4 ='CCCAACACCTGCTGCCT'; my @a4 = qw(CCAAC ACACC); put_bracket($s1,\@a1); put_bracket($s2,\@a2); put_bracket($s3,\@a3); put_bracket($s4,\@a4); sub put_bracket { my( $str, $ar ) = @_; foreach my $subs ( @$ar ) { # Construct a regexp with [\[\]] between all the letters my $newsub = join '[\[\]]?', split //, $subs; $str =~ s/($newsub)/[$1]/g; } # Now de-nest the brackets in the string my $depth = 0; my $newstr = ''; foreach my $c ( split //, $str ) { if ( $c eq '[' ) { $newstr .= $c if $depth++ == 0; } elsif ( $c eq ']' ) { $newstr .= $c if --$depth == 0; } else { $newstr .= $c; } } return $newstr; }