Here's what I want to do more clearly. 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 Re^2: Form letters: eval a string to substutite perl variables by brycen
in thread Form letters: eval a string to substutite perl variables by brycen

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