use strict;
my $str = 'However, I now have words like these:
Word-another-word
more_words_like_these
and I would like to be able to retain the integrity of these words as they are (connected) but my current preg_match breaks them down into individual words.';
my $regex = qr/(\w+|[-.;?!,:])/sixp;
my $subst = '$1';
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