Zaxo speaks the truth... Adapted from The Perl Cookbook (pg.231)...

my $file = '~rich36/perl/makeperl';

$file =~ s{ ^ ~ ( [^/]* ) }
    { $1
        ? (getpwnam($1))[7]
        : ( $ENV{HOME} || $ENV{LOGDIR} || (getpwuid($>))[7] )
    }ex;

print "$file";
__DATA__
/home/users/rich36/perl/makeperl
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