#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; # https://perlmonks.org/?node_id=11146148 use warnings; my $template = 'abcdefa'; my $regex = ''; my %used; for my $char ( split //, $template ) { if( exists $used{$char} ) # seen before { $regex .= "\\$used{$char}\n"; } else # new different character { $regex .= join '', map("(?!\\$_)", sort values %used), "(.)\n"; $used{$char} = 1 + keys %used; } } my $qr = qr/^$regex$/x; # the real regex use Data::Dump 'dd'; dd $qr; @ARGV = '/usr/share/dict/words'; use List::AllUtils qw{ sample }; print sample 10, grep /$qr/, <>