use strict;
my $str = '[\'taxes............................. .7 21.4 (6.2)\',\'regulatory and other matters..................$ 39.9 61.5 41.1\',\'Producer contract reformation cost recoveries............................ DASH 26.3 28.3\']';
my $regex = qr/\.\B/p;
my $subst = ' ';
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