Substitute the markdown italic to html using regex in Perl - regex

Question

To convert the markdown italic text $script into html, I've written this:
my $script = "*so what*";
my $res =~ s/\*(.)\*/$1/g;
print "<em>$1</em>\n";
The expected result is:
<em>so what</em>
but it gives:
<em></em>
How to make it give the expected result?

Answer 1

Problems:
You print the wrong variable.
You switch variable names halfway through.
. won't match more than one character.
You always add one EM element, even if no stars are found.
You always add one EM element, even if multiple pairs of stars are found.
You add the EM element around the entire output, not just the portion in stars.
Fix:
$script =~ s{\*([^*]+)\*}{<em>$1</em>}g;
print "$script\n";
or
my $res = $script =~ s{\*([^*]+)\*}{<em>$1</em>}gr;
print "$res\n";
But that's not it. Even with all the aforementioned problems fixed, your parser still has numerous other bugs. For example, it misapplies italics for all of the following:
**Important**Correct: ImportantYour code: *Important*
4 * 5 * 6 = 120Correct: 4 * 5 * 6 = 120Your code: 4 5 6 = 120
4 * 6 = 20 is *wrong*Correct: 4 * 6 = 20 is wrongYour code: 4 6 = 20 is wrong*
`foo *bar* baz`Correct: foo *bar* bazYour code: `foo bar baz`
\*I like stars\*Correct: *I like stars*Your code: \I like stars\