Would HTML::Entities do what you're asking? 
    use HTML::Entities;
    my $encoded = encode_entities( $input, "&;" );

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The second argument provides the "unsafe" characters that you want encoded. perldoc HTML::Entities.

In reply to Re: Safer (and cleaner) way to print user-supplied text. by btrott
in thread Safer (and cleaner) way to print user-supplied text. by Ovid

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


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