$ perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings -le ' my $wget_url = "/some/path/_SYMBOL__2013 http://example.com/_SYMBOL_.dat"; my @symbols = qw{A B C}; for (@symbols) { (my $sym_url = $wget_url) =~ s/_SYMBOL_/$_/g; print $sym_url; } ' /some/path/A_2013 http://example.com/A.dat /some/path/B_2013 http://example.com/B.dat /some/path/C_2013 http://example.com/C.dat