use strict;
my $str = 'I don\'t [wanna] be a bus [driver] all my [life]';
my $regex = qr/(\[)([^\]]*)(\])/p;
my $subst = '<b>$2</b>';
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