#list of regex-strings my @regex = ( 's/(a+)/\U$1/g', 's/([bz]+)/XX/g', ); #is now a list of subroutines @regex = map { eval "\$sub = sub { \$_=\$_[0]; $_; \$_ }" } @regex; #### my @text = ( "aaaabbzz", "bbbyyy", ); for my $t ( @text ) { print "org $t\n"; for my $re ( @regex ) { $t = &$re($t); } print "new $t\n"; }