(C) 2003, Tim Maher 1-21 www.TeachMePerl.com More Exotic Perl Sed-er expand_abbrevs #! /usr/bin/perl -wp BEGIN { %abbrevs = ( 'FWIW' => "for what it's worth", 'IMHO' => 'in my humble opinion', 'YMMV' => 'your mileage may vary', 'JAPH' => 'Just Another Perl Hacker', ); } foreach my $key ( keys %abbrevs ) { s/\b$key\b/$abbrevs{$key}/ig; }