use strict;
my $str = 'def wrloc(imm_value, imm_address):';
my $regex = qr/def\s+(\w+)\((\w+),\s*(\w+)\):/p;
my $subst = '.macro \\1_imm \\2 \\3';
my $result = $str =~ s/$regex/$subst/r;
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