use strict;
my $str = 'Chicken teriy*ai*ki r*ai*men noodles, spaghetti a la moneg*ai*sque.
^*Have I seen^ you before?*';
my $regex = qr/\*([\w ^?.]*?)\*/p;
my $subst = '<em>\\1<\\em>';
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