$ perl -le' use warnings; use strict; use Data::Dumper; my $s = q{}; print $s; my $value = q{13.95}; print $value; my $q_key = quotemeta( q{[KEY]} ); print $q_key; my $q_value = quotemeta( $value ); print $q_value; $s =~ s/$q_key/$q_value/g; print $s; print Data::Dumper->Dump( [ $s ], [ qw/s/ ] ); ' 13.95 \[KEY\] 13\.95 $s = '';