sub apply_template
  {
    my ($object, $template) = @_;

    $template =~ s/\[(\w+)\]/$object->$1/emg;

    return $template;
  }

# Example usage:

my $template = "Hello [name]. You are [age] years old!";

# We assume there is an object called "Person" with 
# accessor methods for "name" and "age".

my $monkey = new Person ();
$monkey->name("Maybelle");
$monkey->age(4);

my $message = apply_template($monkey, $template);

# prints "Hello Maybelle. You are 4 years old!"
print $messane, "\n";