use strict;
my $str = '1. Wallbaum, H., S. Krank,
3. Levinson, H.S., Highways, people,
4. Mercier, J., Equity, social justice,
225. Lemp, J.D., et al.,
17. Chi, G. and B. Stone,';
my $regex = qr/\d+\K\./mp;
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