Updated: Here's what I want to do. Given a file: 
"Dear $row->{name}; thanks for giving us money."

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I want to slurp it in: 
undef($/);
$block = <FILE>;

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Then substitue in a loop: 
$sql = "select email,name from database";
while( $row=getrow($sql) ) {
   print "Working on $row->{name}\n";
   eval{$block);
   send_email($row->{email},$block);
  }

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The idea is to use perl syntax and the perl parser for the substitution, rather than a made up syntax (e.g. %NAME% and s/%NAME%/$name/). Is this crazy?

In reply to Form letters: eval a string to substutite perl variables by brycen

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