my $message = 'one :-* smiley'; my ($face, $location, $name) = (':-*', 'here', 'smoochie'); $message =~ s/\Q$face\E/ $name /gi; print $message, "\n"; #### if ($face) { if ($message =~ s/\Q$face\E/ $name /gi) { print "Substituted for [$face] in [$message]\n"; } else { print "[$face] was not found in [$message]\n"; } } else { print "$face was not true!\n"; }