in reply to Need to capture an optional sub-directory name

but I am no regex pro

You don't need to become a "regex pro" -- whatever one of those is -- but you would sure save yourself some time in the long run, by making the effort to learn the basics:

$p = 'C:\Tools\scripts\Test\Unstable\Foo.pl';;
$p =~ s[C:\\Tools\\scripts\\([^.]+).pl][$1]; 
$p =~ s[\\][ - ]g; 
print $p;;
Test - Unstable - Foo

$p2 = 'C:\Tools\scripts\Test\Foo.pl';;
$p2 =~ s[C:\\Tools\\scripts\\([^.]+).pl][$1]; 
$p2 =~ s[\\][ - ]g; 
print $p2;;
Test - Foo

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