#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; my $x = '((A & B)\' | (A & C & (A & B & D)\'))'; print "Given: $x\n"; my ($find)= $x=~/([^()]+?)\)/; print "FInd:$find\n"; $x =~ s/$find/!$find/g; print "Calculated: ",$x,"\n";