I go for substitution in cases like this in which case
<code size=+1>$script =~ s/\\//g;</code>
should do what your looking for.
I often use tr to count stuff. as in
<code size=+1>$x = $somestring =~ tr/0-9/0-9/;
#find the number of digits in $somestring and put that value in $x</code>