use strict; use warnings; use Data::Dump; my @exprs = ( "Y = A + (B*C)", "Y = A + (B' + (C*D)')", "Y = A*(B*(C'+D)')", ); for my $expr (@exprs) { print "$expr\n"; $expr =~ s/\(/[/g; $expr =~ s/\)/],/g; $expr =~ s/(\w+|[+*'=])/"$1",/g; my @parse = eval $expr; dd(\@parse); print "\n"; } __END__ Y = A + (B*C) ["Y", "=", "A", "+", ["B", "*", "C"]] Y = A + (B' + (C*D)') ["Y", "=", "A", "+", ["B", "'", "+", ["C", "*", "D"], "'"]] Y = A*(B*(C'+D)') ["Y", "=", "A", "*", ["B", "*", ["C", "'", "+", "D"], "'"]]