What about: 
# First encode possible HTML, because the text is 
# supposed to be plain text
use HTML::Entities();
$text = HTML::Entities::encode($text);

# Convert Windows or Mac line terminators to Unix single \n
$text =~ s/\r\n|\n\r/\n/g;

# Remove leading and trailing white space
$text =~ s/^\s*//;
$text =~ s/\s*$//g

# Convert all double line breaks to para tags
$text =~ s|\n\s*\n|</p><p>|g

# Convert any single line breaks to br tags
$text =~ s|\n\s*|<br />|g

# If text is more than just white space, add opening and
# closing para tags
$text = "<p>$text</p>" if $text;

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In reply to Re: Formatting paragraph by clinton
in thread Formatting paragraph by Anonymous Monk

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


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.