It's not a good idea and neither is what you said you wanted.

Granted.

It sounds like you're trying to do $text = eval qq["$text"].

Note: if the OP does decide to use eval() despite all the reasons not to then a heredoc is better than "" as it avoids sensativity to " characters in the data.

chop ( $text = eval "<<_EOD_$text\n_EOD_" );
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This, of course, is stil confused by "\n_EOD_\n" in the data is still subject to all the dangers implicit in eval().