Ignore the above! Try the following instead

#!

use Smart::Comments;
use strict;
use warnings;

my $sql=<<"__SQL__";
/* comment! */
create table `table name`( # another comment!
   `field name1` type1 not null default 'x has a blank or two',
   `field name2` type2 default null,
#   ...
   primary key (`pk name`),
   key `key name` (`field name1`, `field name2`)
) engine=other things here;
__SQL__

my $RegExp_s=qr{( 
        (`(?:[^`]|\`)*?`)       # backticked string
        |(?:\/\*.*?\*\/)        # /* */ comments
        |(?:'(?:[^']|\')*?')    # single quoted strings
        |(?:"(?:[^"]|\")*?")    # qouble quoted strings
        |(?m:\#.+?$)            # single line # trailing comments
         )}sx; #'               # . includes \n
### $sql

$sql =~ s{$RegExp_s}{defined $2 ? TreatBackTickedString($2) : $1}eg;
### $sql

sub TreatBackTickedString {
    # Jest Fur Phun:
    return substr($_[0],0,-1).substr($_[0],1);
     };
__END__
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