Hi,
I use to keep my variables on a hash and then use a very similar approach as abell (assuming that the variables are written in a Makefile-like style: $(variablename):

foreach (keys %global_variables) {
      $content =~ s/\$\($_\)/$global_variables{$_}/g;
}
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but with this code it is not possible to escape the variable name expansion (e.g. by putting a \) in front of the $. Since there are probably some pitfalls around it would be wise to use an exisiting templating system (btw: is there any reason that so many templating systems exist? ;-)

Regards...	Stefan
you begin bashing the string with a +42 regexp of confusion