use strict;
my $str = '<b>test</b> or <strong> this </strong><em> oh yeah </em> and <i>oh yeah</i> Here we are "ye we \'hold\' it"
some<img/>gfsf<a html="droids.html" onmouseover=\' var x=" Not the droid I am looking for " ; \'>droides</a><pre></pre><code></code><strong></strong><b></b><em></em><i></i>';
my $regex = qr/<(?:(?:img)(?=[\s>\/])(?:[^>=]|=(?:'[^']*'|"[^"]*"|[^'"\s>]*))*\s?\/?>|(a|span|pre|code|strong|b|em|i)(?=[\s>\\])(?:[^>=]|=(?:'[^']*'|"[^"]*"|[^'"\s>]*))*\s?\/?>.*?<\/\1>)|(?:"[^"]*"|[^"<]*)*/sixp;
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