the [noun1] [verb2] #### the [$noun1] [$verb2] #### use Text::Template; # read in the story my @story = <>; my $hash = { }; # these are the word types that you're # going to prompt for and include in your madlib; # the key is what you call the type in the madlib ("adj") # and the value is what you want to prompt for my %types = ( noun => 'noun', verb => 'verb', adj => 'adjective' ); # read in the values from STDIN; # you may want to change this around. # 3 means read 3 words of each type (3 nouns, 3 verbs, etc.) for my $type (keys %types) { for my $i (1..3) { print "give me a $types{$type}: "; chomp($hash->{$type . $i} = ); } } # set up a new template object: # get template from array @story where template # variables are in [] (DELIMITERS) my $t = new Text::Template(TYPE => 'ARRAY', SOURCE => [ @story ], DELIMITERS => ['[', ']']); # fill in the template with the values you read into $hash; # so in the template, [$noun1] => $hash->{'noun1'} my $story = $t->fill_in(HASH => $hash); # then just print it out print $story;