use strict; use warnings; my $line = qq[file="path/goes/here"]; print "Line is '$line'\n"; if ($line =~ /^([^"]*)"([^"]*)"(.*)$/) { my ($prefix, $quoted, $suffix) = ($1, $2, $3); $quoted =~ s|[^/]|x|g; $line = qq[$prefix"$quoted"$suffix]; } print "Line is '$line'\n";