use strict;
my $str = '(link)there is link1(/link), (link)there is link2(/link)';
my $regex = qr/\(link\)(.*?)\(\/link\)/p;
my $subst = '<a href=\'$1\'>$1</a>';
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