use strict;
my $str = 'Dow,John
12345,09876
13568,08642,1,2,3,4,5';
my $regex = qr/(\d),(\d)/mp;
my $subst = '$1|$2';
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