my $file = '~rich36/perl/makeperl';

$file =~ s{ ^ ~ ( [^/]* ) }
	{ $1
		? (getpwnam($1))[7]
		: ( $ENV{HOME} || $ENV{LOGDIR} || (getpwuid($>))[7] )
	}ex;

print "$file";
__DATA__
/home/users/rich36/perl/makeperl