#!perl $_="this is a #fish#\n"; $a{"fish"}="test"; print; s/#(\w+)#/$a{$1}/; print; this is a #fish# this is a test C:\perl -v This is perl, v5.6.1 built for MSWin32-x86-multi-thread (with 1 registered patch, see perl -V for more detail) Copyright 1987-2001, Larry Wall Binary build 626 provided by ActiveState Tool Corp. http://www.ActiveState.com Built 01:31:15 May 2 2001