#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use Benchmark;

our $loop_line = "static replace [something] and [another] thing";

our %replace = (something => "SOMETHING",
                another   => "ANOTHER");

my ($a, $b, $c);

timethese -1 => {
    lazy         =>  '$a = $loop_line; $a =~ s/\[(.*?)\]/$replace{$1}/g',
    restrictive  =>  '$b = $loop_line; $b =~ s/\[([^]]*)\]/$replace{$1}/g', 
    copy         =>  '$c = $loop_line;',
};

__END__
Benchmark: running copy, lazy, restrictive for at least 1 CPU seconds...
       copy:  2 wallclock secs @ 3994936.79/s (n=4234633)
       lazy:  1 wallclock secs @  121663.37/s (n= 122880)
restrictive:  1 wallclock secs @  117028.57/s (n= 122880)