Make your basic data structure look something like this:

my @actions = (
  qr/thingy(with)parens(to)boot/ => sub { do this },
  qr/smile(and)frown/ => [sub { do this }, sub {and this }],
  qr/another(one)bites(the)dust)/ => undef,
);
[download]

Now the execution engine would look like:

$_ = some line;
my @tmp = @actions;
while (@tmp) {
  my ($qr, $ops) = splice @actions, 0, 2;
  if (my @matches = /$qr/) {
    if (not defined $ops) {
      $default->(@matches);
    } elsif (ref $ops eq 'CODE') {
      $ops->(@matches);
    } elsif (ref $ops eq 'ARRAY') {
      $_->(@matches) for @$ops;
    } else { die "bad" }
    last;
  }
}
[download]

I'm sure you can figure out where to make these object instance variables. Hope this helps.

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker