use strict;
my $str = '<variable class="loves">[loves] My dog loves dog food gloves </variable>
<variable class="loves">[loves] My dog hates dog food </variable>';
my $regex = qr/(?<=<variable[^>]*>[^>]*)\bloves\b(?!(?<=\[[^][]*)[^][]*])(?=[^<]*</variable)/mp;
my $subst = 'hates';
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