I wanted to use variables in database 'text'(content for a website). However, since perl won't use the variables in a database, it would just show the variable (ie: $_co_name for Company Name) in the text.

So I had to make a way to replace those variables while it is reading them from the database into the hash that calls them.

Ok, so it seems like what you're really after here is a home grown template system, right? Is it possible to use an existing robust one like Template Toolkit or HTML::Template? Using TT as an example, you would have the string I work for [% co_name %], the best company there is! stored in the db. Then perl code would look like:

my $template = Template->new();
my $vars = {co_name=>"Foo-Co"};
my $my_template_string = 'I work for [% co_name %], the best company t
+here is!';
my $string;
$template->process(\$my_template_string, $vars, \$string);  # stores o
+utput in $string
print $string;
$template->process(\$my_template_string, $vars );  # dumps output to S
+TDOUT
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As for your code, a couple major things jump out at me.. the first is eval ($vars{$1}) vs $vars{eval($1)} .. why are both necessary? can you provide template examples for each of the substitutions? is the intent to do something like this?

        $content =~ s/(\$[a-zA-Z0-9\{\'\}_]+)/ eval($vars{$1}) || $var
+s{eval($1)} || eval($1) /ge;
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The other (related) item is looking at these two lines:

        $content =~ s/(\$[a-zA-Z0-9\{\'\}_]+)/ eval($temp_vars{$1}) /g
+e;
        $content =~ s/(\$[a-zA-Z0-9\{\'\}_]+)/ $temp_vars{eval($1)} /g
+e;
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They have the exact same pattern, and the first is a global replacement, which means that the second can never match (unless the first replacement value included a template string itself)... this goes for pretty much all of the replacement sets...