use strict;
my $str = 'char *x __P((char *, size_t,
void *, size_t, int));
char *y __P((void *, const char *, int));';
my $regex = qr/(.*?)__P\((.*?)\);/sp;
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