our %ESCAPES = ( n => "\n", t => "\t", ); my $interpolated = ''; { local *_ = \$string; # Alias $_ to $string. for (;;) { if (/\G \$(\w+) /gcsx || /\G \${(\w+)} /gcsx) { $interpolated .= eval '$'.$1; next; } if (/\G \\(.) /gcsx) { $interpolated .= exists($ESCAPES{$1}) ? $ESCAPES{$1} : $1; next; } /\G ( . # Catchall. (?: # These four lines are optional. (?!\\) # They are here to speed things up (?!\$) # by avoiding adding individual .)* # characters to the $interpolated. ) /gcsx && do { $interpolated .= $1; next; }; last; } }