use strict;
my $str = 'dano@xpotential.com (notes here)
John Doe
" John Doe " <johndoe@example.com>';
my $regex = qr/^\s+|\s*"\s*|\s*<.*|\S+@\S+|\s*\(\s*|\s*\)\s*/p;
my $subst = '\\t';
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