Just a small suggestion, but if you leave the check for a replace argument out of the following code:
  unless ($phash{find} && $phash{replace}){
so
  unless ($phash{find}){
Then you can also do a find Delete.

Also as a side note, in windows, the find argument appears to be always preprocessed for octal binary codes, regardless of the state of the -a switch. I can't however find a reason, although the code looks secure.

    if ($phash{ascii}){
    $phash{find}=&asciicode($phash{find});
    $phash{replace}=&asciicode($phash{replace});
    }
[download]

Regards, Dermot