I think you need to take a step back and answer the question, "Why do bare ampersands (&) and HTML/SGML/XML entities co-exist in this file?"

If the answer is that you are trying to encode characters in the file, then I have two answers for you:

  1. Check CPAN for code to do this for you.
  2. If you feel you need to code this yourself, the first step should be to convert ampersands to the ampersand entity (probably &). At that point, there will no longer be any "bare ampersands" in the file and you may safely proceed with converting other characters to their respective entities.
If you have some other answer to my question, you need to explain that in your question.

In reply to Re: character replace by eye
in thread character replace by sandy1028

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.