#!/usr/bin/env perl use strict; use warnings; use Test::More; my %foo = ( 'a(b)c' => 'ac', 'ab()cd' => 'abcd' ); my $snr = qr/\(.*?\)/; for my $have (keys %foo) { my $want = $foo{$have}; $have =~ s/$snr//sg; is ($have, $want); } done_testing ();