use strict;
my $str = '$example1 = \'<p data-entity-type="" data-entity-uuid="" style="text-align: center;"><span><img alt="image.jpg" data-entity-type="" data-entity-uuid="" height="349" src="image.jpg" width="620" /><span title="Click and drag to resize">•</span></span></p>\';
$example2 = \'<p><img alt="image.jpg" data-entity-type="" data-entity-uuid="" height="349" src="image.jpg" width="620" /></p>\';
$example3 = \'<html>
<head></head>
<body>
some text here...
<p><img alt="image.jpg" data-entity-type="" data-entity-uuid="" height="349" src="image.jpg" width="620" />
</p>
</body>
</html>\';
======================================
';
my $regex = qr/(?><p\s*>\s*(<img\s+(?:"[\S\s]*?"|'[\S\s]*?'|[^>]?)+\s*\/?>)\s*<\/p\s*>)|(?><(?:(?:(?:(script|style|object|embed|applet|noframes|noscript|noembed)(?:\s+(?>"[\S\s]*?"|'[\S\s]*?'|(?:(?!\/>)[^>])?)+)?\s*>)[\S\s]*?<\/\2\s*(?=>))|(?:\/?[\w:]+\s*\/?)|(?:[\w:]+\s+(?:"[\S\s]*?"|'[\S\s]*?'|[^>]?)+\s*\/?)|\?[\S\s]*?\?|(?:!(?:(?:DOCTYPE[\S\s]*?)|(?:\[CDATA\[[\S\s]*?\]\])|(?:--[\S\s]*?--)|(?:ATTLIST[\S\s]*?)|(?:ENTITY[\S\s]*?)|(?:ELEMENT[\S\s]*?))))>)(*SKIP)(*FAIL)/p;
my $subst = '$1';
my $result = $str =~ s/$regex/$subst/rg;
print "The result of the substitution is' $result\n";
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for Perl, please visit: http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html