use strict;
my $str = '<body>
<div>(content)</div>
</body>';
my $regex = qr~<body\K~p;
my $subst = ' class="new_class_attr"';
my $result = $str =~ s~$regex~$subst~r;
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